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Yeah consumer CPUs have been 64-bit since what, the PowerPC G5 (2003), Athlon 64 (2003), and Core 2 (2006)? There were a few 32-bit x86 CPUs that were released
by cosmic_cheese 1y ago
Yeah consumer CPUs have been 64-bit since what, the PowerPC G5 (2003), Athlon 64 (2003), and Core 2 (2006)? There were a few 32-bit x86 CPUs that were released afterward, but they were things like Atoms which were quite weak even for the time and would be practically useless on the modern internet.
More generally I feel that Core 2 serves as a pretty good line in the sand across the board. It’s not too hard to make machines of that vintage useful, but becomes progressively challenging with anything older.
- selectodude 1y agoIntel Prescott, so like 2004.
- kstrauser 1y agoI mentioned elswewhere, but Apple started selling 32 bit Core (not Core 2) MacBook Pros in 2006. Those seemed dated even at the time. I’d call them basically the last of the 32 bit premium computers from a major vendor. Frankly, anything older than that sucks so much power per unit of work that I wouldn’t want to use them for anything other than a space heater.
- Sohcahtoa82 1y agoFor what it's worth, people may have been running 64-bit CPUs, but many were still on 32-bit OSes. I was on 32-bit XP until I upgraded to 64-bit Win7.
- cosmic_cheese 1y agoI have to imagine that group to be pretty small by now, though. Most PCs with specs good enough to still be useful now run W7 64-bit about as well as they do XP SP3 (an old C2D box of mine feels great under 7, as an anecdote), and for those who’ve been running Linux on these boxes there’s not really much reason to go for a 32-bit build over a 64-bit one.
- niutech 1y agoYou forgot to mention RAM. Old PCs have often <=4GB RAM and 32-bit browsers use less RAM: https://www.ghacks.net/2016/01/03/32-bit-vs-64-bit-browsers-which-version-has-the-edge/ https://www.ghacks.net/2016/01/03/32-bit-vs-64-bit-browsers-...