Any advantages to 64 bit?

[dedndave]

i dunno Michael
honestly, i am surprised to see 3.2 GHz
having done some work with microwave circuits, i know how hard that must be
but, you never know - i am pretty sure that obtainable frequency is limited by feature spacing on a die
according to wikipedia, 11 nm technology should be here by 2022
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/11_nanometer
if i am still young enough to become surprised, i will be surprised to see cpu's over 10 GHz - lol
the highest frequency radio circuits i have worked with was ~100 GHz
we can't really make stable oscillators much above that (120 GHz maybe)
i think visible light is about 30,000 GHz (30 terahertz)

[Strobe Raver]

A pointer would be not 4 bytes but 8. :eek

[NPNW]

Dave,

I'm sure that they will come up with some need for something. That is what marketing is for. I think right now we don't see the next great app, or need for faster processors. Yet, there is always room for improvement. It may just require a tweaking of a concept that will make the next great application a necessity.  I personally don't see the need for the new phones, with video, text, MP3, etc. Yet a lot of people are lost if they are not connected. This is also probably because we are getting old. I would say the opportunity is out there, it just hasn't been found or implemented yet.


I mean look at google? TEXT? Who would have thought. GUI, GUI, GUI!
Yet, Text has dominated the internet search market.

It may be something old made useful into something new.
Assembly Language?

NPNW

[dedndave]

you are probably right
i am just too old - lol
i have xp and xp mce
i have collected all the KB's, SP's, and installable programs i need
as long as the internet still works more or less the same way, i am good with my 32-bit stuff
on the bright side, you will be able to get 32-bit machines for $10 at a garage sale - lol

[NPNW]

Someone made the point that the SSD worked better on a boundary. This could be the driver synchronizing with the Hard Drive, Memory access , Cache, and Address lines on the motherboard, or processor. There could be a number of different factors that would go into optimization of the hardware to increase throughput of the drive's.
If They don't it may require twice as many fetches to retrieve the data, or get it out of synch and that would slow down the performance.

Just my thoughts on the subject.
Would have to look at the hardware specs to determine things.

NPNW

[NPNW]

Dave,

I can see the need for scientific, business, government to always need more powerful processors, but the average user?
I think your right, the 32 bit machine is enough to do what we want. I mean what what would we do if you have your gps, phone, internet, voice recognition, all on your glasses with holographic technology? That would be a legitimate need of more power, but at what cost?
Right now, can Intel and them build a processor with those capabilities at the price point to fill that application.

The IPOD? Not a killer app, but a killer hardware product. At least for Apple so far. The XBOX, PS3, PS2, Game Cube, Wii. All good hardware designs.
Software usually lags behind hardware, we have to have a fundamental shift in hardware before we will see a change in software. Right now there have been relatively no changes in hardware from the Intel 4004 machine. Other than speed, memory requirements. The fundamental pinnings have been the same.

Now HP invented an analog computer chip, that may open up possibilities. However, we are still stuck with Integrated Circuits. There has not been a quantum leap in technology for the computer in 60 years? Transistors? Instead of Vacum tubes?  That was the last great leap. We have improved the design, but not really changed it.
Faster, Faster, more Memory, more Cache, more storage.

No, till we see a basic fundamental change, we will be stuck with what we have, just tweaked differently.

NPNW

[jj2007]

For 99.9% of the market's needs, 32-bit is sufficient. And yet, marketing driven by a coalition of M$ and PC manufacturers will force 64-bit down our throat. The weak point are ignorant consumers, in particular gamers - they will believe what they are told, and buy the hardware.

On the other hand, I don't believe that 32-bit will be obsolete soon. Remember Win 3.1? That was a century ago, looked awkward, was horribly slow and insufficient. And yet, XP, Vista and I guess also Win7 still flawlessly run Win 3.1 16-bit applications. They might be a little bit slower, but the look and feel is almost the same. And as long as nobody trashes BlOutlook in spite of the fact that a simple message box takes up to three seconds (!) to be shown, I can't believe that speed is really that important.

What does count, though, is the fact that numerous small, medium and big businesses have legacy apps. And don't forget public administration - they cry foul very quickly if a pet app ceases to work. This is the true reason why 16-bit still works, a century after its official disappearance.

Add to that the observation that the introduction of 32-bit was a quantum leap, compared to 16-bit. Win32 is so much faster and easier. Win64 is not: It bloats code without any significant benefit.

In short: Win64 will come, for marketing reasons only, but Win32 will not disappear. I expect a long peaceful coexistence...

[sinsi]

Games, games, games. They gobble up our puny 2GB address space. Sheesh, there are video card setups with 8GB of RAM.

>quantum leap
When you think about it, a quantum is the smallest -> quantum leap -> tiny step  :lol

[jj2007]

When you think about it, a quantum is the smallest -> quantum leap -> tiny step  :lol

That does not correspond to the normal usage of the word, but you hit the nail on the head :U