[PLUG] PC Purchase

[Elliott Mitchell]

>From: plug_0 at robinson-west.com
> What does the 64 bit refer to?  Is it: the word size on these processors, 
> the memory addressing space, a clever way to shove 2 32 bit processors 
> into one package?  For all the recent duo core hype, is it really 
> merited?  Sounds to me like problems from IA-32 architecture are still 
> causing trouble for operators of the newer Itanium architecture systems, 
> if that's what it's called.  I have an Alpha system.  A miserable 
> experience, everywhere I went it was hard to get the right software 
> for it.  To make it run again, I need to modify a new power supply for it.

Addressible memory is generally 2 to the power of the word size, 2^32 for
processors with 32-bit words, 2^64 on processors with 64-bit words. ia32
of course had the segment registers which messed this up, but in 32-bit
mode those were pretty well ignored. I guess you haven't heard all the
mentions, Alpha is dead and Itanic is pretty well DOA (Intel claims it is
still alive, but almost everyone agrees it looks pretty well like a
zombie on un-life support).

Generally they're always refering to the word size (since that is the
number that matters). The one field where the manufacturers tend to lie
was in the console market, the N64 didn't use a 64-bit word, it merely
had a 64-bit wide bus.

> Linux was lagging behind on Alpha and Microsoft abandoned both their 
> Windows NT and their Windows 2000 port.  What will make or break 64 
> bit computing?  Alpha got killed,  what makes Intel think that their 
> 64 bit offerings are going to live?  What makes AMD so confident?

Do you really think Alpha, Itanic and ia32 are the only processors ever
made? There are plenty of other processors, such as 68K, ARM, MIPS,
PA-RISC, SPARC and PowerPC. Of those the last 4 all have 64-bit modes,
PA-RISC has been terminated by HP, SPARC looks like it will be slowly
dying off, while MIPS has been consigned to the embedded space (who don't
need 64-bit words *yet*), and with Apple gone PPC64 isn't on very many
machines. Nonetheless all four do have 64-bit modes/varients.

What will make 64-bit computing common is the 4GB barrier. 4GB is
2^32, once you've got 4GB of memory there isn't too much point of adding
more memory to a machine with 32-bit addressing. Even before then, a
fair slice of a process's address space tends to get grabbed by various
things being mapped in that aren't needed. Even at 2GB of memory address
starts becoming scarce. With normal consumer desktop systems heading
towards that, 64-bit is here to stay. Professional desktops of course are
already well past that point.

Intel has two 64-bit offerings. There is their implementation of amd64
(later P4s, and Core 2), and ia64 (Itanic). Their confidence in ia64 is
insanity, that is management trying not to admit defeat even when the
reality is they're DOA. Core 2 is a decent amd64 implementation, it is
faster than AMD's current generation (but that generation is now old) and
its power consumption isn't too awful. But, we've yet to see AMD's
answer, otherwise Core 2 is expected to be reasonably successful.

AMD of course produced the amd64 architecture. Their magic card was that
it was fully backwards compatible with ia32, as opposed to ia64 which
merely placed an ia32 core on the same die as the ia64. Since they've
only got one architecture to deal with, they don't have to waste as much
effort. Given how ia64 is DOA, and amd64 is now well established, AMD is
right to be confident in amd64. OTOH they're still behind Intel in
percentage of the market, but they've been making massive inroads.

> The computer industry has pushed for speed, speed, and more speed.  Are
> the current technologies being taken as far as they can go?  Hard drives
> have grown in capacity impressively fast, yet lately their reliability
> seems to be dropping.  Motherboard level: APM, plug and play, and ACPI 
> implementations still seem to vary a great deal causing problems even 
> in Windows.  Are features still designed for Windows by chipset and
> processor manufacturers without any consideration of other OS'es.  Maybe 
> our computers are getting fast enough, but what good is a race car without
> tires?  What good is a duo core pentium system if the $10 power supply 

Yeah, you get what you pay for. Cheap garbage is, well, cheap garbage.

> dies?  People say 64 bit computing is a reality, but then I see a long
> discussion about problems running flash on these systems.

Flash doesn't have a 64-bit version. Running an ia32 version of Flash
inside a browser that uses amd64, is a little interesting (though I'm
surprised no one has taken a serious whack at it yet).

> Reliability needs to catch up to speed increases.  Maybe skillful use of
> pelsiar devices will allow the newest processors to operate fanless and
> save on power consumption.  Nothing like losing a $3000 computer because
> a $20 fan failed.

Only problem is the peltier devices use a *lot* more power than a fan.
All of the current generation of processors have a shutdown on overheat,
so that isn't too big a deal (well, they shutdown, but they don't fry).


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