Gates: 64-Bit Desktop Computing Will Be Mainstream In Two Years

CRN ^ | 11:38 AM EST Wed., May 05, 2004 | Paula Rooney

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Microsoft Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates predicted that 64-bit computing will become mainstream in the PC industry over the next two years because of 32-bit extended technology that preserves customers' existing investments.

"64-bit will be common sense in the next couple of years," Gates said, noting that the high-performance processor engine will take off on workstations and desktops as 64-bit/32-bit capable chipsets supercede stand-alone 32-bit processors in the next couple of years. "It puts us at the very high end of computing, and it will be a smoother transition than those previously."

To that end, Microsoft announced at WinHec 2004 in Seattle that its Windows XP 64-Bit Edition for 64-Bit Extended Systems is scheduled to be released in the fourth quarter.

The Redmond, Wash., software giant also unveiled the release of an enhanced Driver Development Kit for the 64-bit Extended environment that will support Visual Studio.Net 2003 and Microsoft .Net Framework 1.1, which will enable more application development for the 64-bit Extended environment.

Gates said Microsoft will take advantage of processors with "multiple cores" that enable parallel processing on the PC desktop and server. The company will support typical eight-core server processors and two-core desktop processors, Gates said. He also urged ISVs to begin developing applications that exploit the new architectures.

Microsoft's Windows Server 2003 for 64-Bit Extended Systems, now in beta testing, also is scheduled for release during the second half.

Extended is the second 64-bit architecture supported by Microsoft. The Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 Extended offerings are based on 64-bit extensions to the x86 instruction set and support both AMD 64 and Xeon processors with 64-bit extension technology.

[Datahead]

Oh wait. There's been a delay. Pushed out 2 more years. ;-) </sarcasm>

[CyberCowboy777]

Three questions:

Industry

Applications

Market share of new technology buys

main·stream n. The prevailing current of thought, influence, or activity: "You need not accept the nominee's ideology, only be able to locate it in the American mainstream" (Charles Krauthammer). adj. Representing the prevalent attitudes and values of a society or group: mainstream morality. v. –tr.

[BurbankKarl]

oh MY MACHINE has XP....

heehee

[Republicus2001]

That's amazing! I also just heard some woman claim she can hear human voices coming from a transistor radio!

[B Knotts]

The Itanic...err...Itanium is currently in its second version. It is not exactly flying off the shelves.

It's not RISC, but is a Very Long Instruction Word (VLIW) CPU.

Intel has recently given in, however, to the allure (and likely market success) of AMD's x86-64 approach, and will soon introduce similar affordable 64-bit processors.

[The Radical Capitalist]

I'll happily embrace 64-bit technology when it becomes readily available. I'm just a home office computer user, but every year I see the need for more and more power and memory in my own work.

Digital photography and multi-tasking are just two reasons why I'd welcome signifcant improvements in power and speed.

Heck, I purchased my first DVD-burner a few months ago, and already I feel constrained by the 4.7G limit. I want more than just 1 hour of DVD quality when re-mastering my old VHS videos, and I don't want it to take 3 hours to do it. I want to back-up my hard disk on 1 DVD disc, not 5 or 6. Bring on the blue lasers and the 64-bit processors! And while we're at it, I'd like to do my own private weather forcasting, too.

[js1138]

IBM recently announced a line of micro mainframes. I'm curious what they are doing. PCs have long had more CPU power than mainframes, but have been limited by slow memory and storage access. It should be possible to build a system that feeds the CPU continuously and eliminates most of the waiting.

This would mean that storage devices would be a lot smarter than they are now.

[B Knotts]

64-bit Suns have been mainstream for a while in the Internet business, which you may have heard of.

[Hodar]

Available today - yes
Mainstream - no

The present addressable memory limit with IA32 is 4 Gig. Once upon a time, a machine with 1 GB was unheard of; today it's commonplace. We are fast approaching the 4 Gig barrier.

iAMD-64 bumps the addressable memory limit from 4 Gig, to 256 TeraBytes. Let's just say that 256 TeraBytes of DDR is a really BIG jump forward.

Neglecting PCI-express and multiple Hyper-Transport links (ie. dual core 64 bit processors in a single package; that drops into your existing motherboard), this is where we are going. Nvidia and ATI have already released PCI-express Graphics engines, which bump performance upwards of 300% over existing technology.

Gamers will very likely be among the first to jump on the bandwagon. Next will be those who want to up-band their video through a graphics engine to their HDTV. iAMD64 will rock the world like Intel did with the Pentium against the x486.

[Myrddin]

I'm looking forward to making the 64-bit leap on an AMD platform. I remember the pain of porting 32-bit software to the Dec ALPHA processor in the early 90s. There's lots of alligators waiting for software developers in the transition. The "void" type pointers are 128 bits wide. That blows structure alignments in memory, on disk and in function calls. Maybe we'll toss a conversion to IP version 6 into the mix. Endure the maximum discomfort while you have good hotshots warming the software development seats.

[CyberCowboy777]

The reason really doesn't matter.

I won't run my Linux box as my main because of these type of shortcomings.

I am certainly no MS disciple and I am glad to see Linux taking market in business and education. I run Firefox, Thunderbird and OO on my XP box right next to my Fedora box. - but... Linux has a ways to go before it can make any dent in the small business, home, gamer market.

Your O/S is only as good as the applications that Joe Blow can run and utilize.

[bigcheese]

Video editing, image manipulation... any program that needs lots and lots of memory benefits because 64 bit can address a heck of a lot more RAM than a 32 bit proggie. If I can make a swag here, i would also have to say that speed increases as well because 32 bit processors are limited to four 'words' (data chunks) at a time, and 64 bit will eat 8 words at a time.

[The Radical Capitalist]

My dad was an "early adapter." I remember his Tandy CoCo (first 16, then 32K) and his Coleco Adam computer, which he still has fond memories of.

[CyberCowboy777]

Market share of technology buys?

I am not claiming nonexistence - only disputing the "mainstream" claim.

[brbethke]

The Games-Based Linux Distro project

[RightOnline]

Gates is dead-on right on this one.

[CyberCowboy777]

You nailed it.

This is going to be big - and FUN!

[NJ_gent]

"what advantage is 64-bit for the foreseeable future?"

Extra registers for one thing - x86 is register-starved. If you're looking for more general conceptual benefits, we could start with all those workstation applications and developer applications that could benefit from the memory addressing of AMD64. Rendering applications will be able to take on far more complex tasks with off-the-shelf hardware, and developers looking to run realistic tests don't have to wait for their clunky desktop with 1GB of RAM to crunch through a 10GB database. Essentially, there's no benefits for grandma, but for those hitting the upper edges of x86-32, this is a godsend.

[js1138]

Intel has recently given in, however, to the allure (and likely market success) of AMD's x86-64 approach, and will soon introduce similar affordable 64-bit processors.

And they're likely to be bags. AMD has done theirs from the ground up.

[Myrddin]

I'm wondering if the hyperthreaded Intel CPU makes life more interesting when testing a multi-threaded program. A real two processor machine introduces the possibility of concurrent access to the same memory location, thus the need to include flawless concurrency locking schemes. If the hyperthreaded CPU acts identically to a real 2 CPU machine, I'll spring for one of those ASAP.