well, you can already do operations on 128bit of data that represents and int as well, but that's a kind of silly thing to say because higher level abstractions

well, you can already do operations on 128bit of data that represents and int as well, but that's a kind of silly thing to say because higher level abstractions are just about making things easier. so now you can do it in 1 operation rather than several; if that's all you gain, then it's still worth it