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View Full Version : Why 64-bits are good, and why they're not


LJ
07-23-2003, 10:17 AM
Abit passed along this article. Thought you might be interested:

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10502

"...a commercial perspective, almost all general purpose computer vendors make most of their profit (as distinct from turnover) by selling servers and not workstations. 64-bit addressing has been critical for some users of large servers for several years now, and has been beneficial to most of them. In 2003, 64-bit is needed by some users of medium sized servers and useful to most; by 2005, that statement could be changed to say `small' instead of 'medium sized'. That is why all of the mainframe and RISC/Unix vendors moved to 64-bit addressing some time ago, and that is why Intel and AMD are following."

"On the other hand, if you are interested primarily in ordinary, single user workstations, what does 64-bit addressing give you today? The answer is precious little. The needs of workstations have nothing to do with the matter, and the move to 64-bit is being driven by server requirements."

TRN
07-23-2003, 08:22 PM
I believe that if I pulled out articles published after the release of the 286/386/486/ pentium, PII, PIII, P4 and many others that each of these was described as server-only products. This is why I believe that the initial market may be for the server, eventually 64-bit processors will drip down to the single station.