4 ms·

the end of 32 bit computing I wonder how long it will be before 128 bit is the new 64 bit?

jacquesm 17y ago
4004 1971, 4 bits, 740 Khz 8080 1974, 8 bits, 2 MHz 8086 1978, 16 bits, 5 MHz 80386 1985, 32 bits, 12 MHz AMDK8 2003, 64 bits, 1 GHz Only 'x86' parts, if you look at other architectures (for instance 68k) then the dates will be quite different. The interesting part about that list is that if the clock frequencies had continue to increase I'm fairly sure that the 32 bit model would have been taken a lot further up before going for 64 bits. So it seems as though the widening of the datapath is to some extent used to offset the limit on CPU frequency.
- davidw 17y ago
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IA-64 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IA-64 came out in 2001, although it was something of a huge failure.
  - Zev 17y ago
    The Itanium instruction set didn't exactly maintain backwards compatibility with the x86 instruction set.
    - davidw 17y ago
      I think he added that after my comment, although I'm not positive.
      - jacquesm 17y ago
        Nothing was added or removed after your comment.
        davidw 17y ago
        Oh, guess I just wasn't paying attention then... got a nasty cold.
        jacquesm 17y ago
        Ouch... hope you get better soon then, that can really ruin a week or more if you're unlucky. I hate that feeling, when your brain turns to mush and you can't think clearly.
- axod 17y ago
  64bit hasn't really become common place despite being around for years. It's a trade off between performance and storage, and I think we'll probably settle on 32bit for the next 10 years in consumer devices anyway. Just my 2c
  - rythie 17y ago
    You need it to take advantage of 4GB+ of memory really - so that's most systems you see in shops already. 64bit took off in Enterprise systems (IBM/Sun/SGI etc.) where it was common to have 4GB+ of memory years ago. The Desktop is next. 64bit will come to mobile/embedded when they have 4GB+ of memory. The Windows and Mac OS ecosystems (particularly drivers) need to catch up with 64bit support, currently this is still spotty which is inhibiting adoption. Linux support driver support for 64bit is excellent due to most drivers being open source - but most people are not using Linux.
    - axod 17y ago
      You don't need 64bit to take advantage of 4GB+. Only really necessary if you want to address 4GB+ at the same time in the same process.
      - rythie 17y ago
        Yes I know. But if you are running a game on a PC with 8GB of memory and the game can only use 4GB of that (actually 2.7GB in windows), it's not really taking advantage of it, is it? Also consumer versions of 32bit Windows don't support PAE so only see 4GB of memory (actually 3.5GB after memory mapping of hardware devices) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension and http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778(VS.85).aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778(VS.85).aspx

4004 1971, 4 bits, 740 Khz 8080 1974, 8 bits, 2 MHz 8086 1978, 16 bits, 5 MHz 80386 1985, 32 bits, 12 MHz AMDK8 2003, 64 bits, 1 GHz Only 'x86' parts, if you look at other architectures (for instance 68k) then the dates will be quite different. The interesting part about that list is that if the clock frequencies had continue to increase I'm fairly sure that the 32 bit model would have been taken a lot further up before going for 64 bits. So it seems as though the widening of the datapath is to some extent used to offset the limit on CPU frequency.

davidw 17y ago
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IA-64 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IA-64 came out in 2001, although it was something of a huge failure.
- Zev 17y ago
  The Itanium instruction set didn't exactly maintain backwards compatibility with the x86 instruction set.
  - davidw 17y ago
    I think he added that after my comment, although I'm not positive.
    - jacquesm 17y ago
      Nothing was added or removed after your comment.
      - davidw 17y ago
        Oh, guess I just wasn't paying attention then... got a nasty cold.
        jacquesm 17y ago
        Ouch... hope you get better soon then, that can really ruin a week or more if you're unlucky. I hate that feeling, when your brain turns to mush and you can't think clearly.
axod 17y ago
64bit hasn't really become common place despite being around for years. It's a trade off between performance and storage, and I think we'll probably settle on 32bit for the next 10 years in consumer devices anyway. Just my 2c
- rythie 17y ago
  You need it to take advantage of 4GB+ of memory really - so that's most systems you see in shops already. 64bit took off in Enterprise systems (IBM/Sun/SGI etc.) where it was common to have 4GB+ of memory years ago. The Desktop is next. 64bit will come to mobile/embedded when they have 4GB+ of memory. The Windows and Mac OS ecosystems (particularly drivers) need to catch up with 64bit support, currently this is still spotty which is inhibiting adoption. Linux support driver support for 64bit is excellent due to most drivers being open source - but most people are not using Linux.
  - axod 17y ago
    You don't need 64bit to take advantage of 4GB+. Only really necessary if you want to address 4GB+ at the same time in the same process.
    - rythie 17y ago
      Yes I know. But if you are running a game on a PC with 8GB of memory and the game can only use 4GB of that (actually 2.7GB in windows), it's not really taking advantage of it, is it? Also consumer versions of 32bit Windows don't support PAE so only see 4GB of memory (actually 3.5GB after memory mapping of hardware devices) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Physical_Address_Extension and http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778(VS.85).aspx http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa366778(VS.85).aspx