[wplug] (OT) 32 more bits

[Bill Moran]

In my opinion, the reason you're seeing slow adoption of 64-bit arch is
that it's just not in big demand.  The move from 16bit to 32bit was a big
deal because everyone was doing 32bit math anyway.  But very few apps are
doing 64bit math right now, so the improvement isn't very notable.

The two big advantages that will come from 64bit arch:
1) As noted by others, the addressable memory will extend far past 4G.
   This _can_ be a big deal on many servers, but doesn't mean much to
   the average desktop yet.
2) Systems that do a lot of 64bit math will see significant performance
   gains.  Of course, there are very few systems that _have_ to do 64bit
   math, so not many people care.

Overall, I think 64bit architecture will eventually replace 32bit, but I
doubt it will ever be a big deal.

Brandon Kuczenski <brandon at 301south.net> wrote:
> What with Microsoft's announcement of plans to release "three new 
> versions" of Windows that run on 64-bit architecture, it's been all over 
> the news lately.  Of course, 64-bit Linux has been around for awhile (it's 
> been, what, a year since AMD first released an Athlon 64?).
> 
> Meanwhile, most of us who have personal or otherwise light-duty servers 
> are probably getting by just fine with 3, 5, 10 year old equipment. 
> Obviously industrial servers have it a little more tough, but I'm not 
> mistaken when I say 1 64-bit machine != 2 32-bit machines, right?  I just 
> don't see what's the big deal.
> 
> I'm not too well-versed in a lot of hardware issues, so I would like to 
> hear what more knowledgable people (you) think about 64-bit architecture. 
> What bottlenecks does it remove?  What are its primary benefits? 
> Compared to CPU speed? How much of a performance increase would someone 
> see on an otherwise identical high-end system (say, 2-3 GHz) that runs a 
> 32 vs. a 64 bit CPU?  On servers? on desktops?  in toasters?
> 
> etc.
> 
> I suppose it's not a well-posed question, but I was just curious what 
> people think.  I read an article that said the 32-bit address space was 
> too small, that it made it "inherently harder to run more applications on 
> a single box [1]."  That sounds like a lot of hooey to me, but like I 
> said, I'm not too well-versed in hardware.


-- 
Bill Moran
Potential Technologies
http://www.potentialtech.com