INTEL.....is there a problem ?

Ran across this tidbit of info in this article.....
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=5897

Rein blames the reasons for 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the operating system on Intel. "I think these were compromises they made for Intel, and I think those are mistakes that’ll hold the industry back. There’s no reason why every machine out there shouldn’t be 64-bit now. There’s great 64-bit processors -- AMD has been shipping them for years. Intel was shipping them for years -- and then threw the core processor, the original core processor, into the mix and the Core Duos were 32-bit, and they shouldn’t have."

While it's understandable that Rein would like a swift move to 64-bit computing, the rest of the industry doesn't appear to be ready. The driver support just isn't there and the performance advantages on the consumer side haven't been fully realized yet. Rein, however, will likely get his wish with the next generation Windows operating system.

I'm not for one company or the other (you tend to miss alot if you have blinders on), just wondering how Core2 is in 64 bit .

Core2 in 64bit is, according to some tests, roughly as fast as in 32bit, application dependent
In 64bit, they have the advantage of twice as many registers, and registers with twice the size, plus 64 bit integer math which is useful for fast encryption.
The disadvantage in 64 bit mode is, reportedly, that they cannot do macro-op fusion, and in some cases the decode bandwidth goes down with SSE instructions (due to these being bigger than in 32 bit mode).
The problem is not Core2, but Core (1), which does not support 64 bit at all, yet is still quite popular for notebooks.

Well, he is right in a lot of ways. Microsoft could easily have said "You need a 64-bit processor to run Vista" if it weren't for the slew of Pentium-M and Core Duo notebooks still in heavy use. The hardware makers probably wouldn't have minded, they would have sold more hardware.

edit - I have a Core Duo laptop as my primary machine...and I plan on upgrading it with a T7200 at some point.

Why? Most people will be buying this OS with new computers, and you won't find a new computer (except for some overstock laptops) that aren't 64-bit capable.

Why? Most people will be buying this OS with new computers, and you won't find a new computer (except for some overstock laptops) that aren't 64-bit capable.

Few new comps will ship with vista, most will be XP.

Might have to do with the fact that most people dont need 4GB RAM...

What...and people with 8-bit computers aren't entitled to OS upgrades? At some point every architechture has to die, 64-bit has been mature for long enough that I think that the switch should have happened here. XP will continue to be supported for years anyways so I don't see why 32-bit can't become legacy, by the time that 64-bit (i.e. Vista) becomes required most people will need\want new computers anyways so whats the big deal with dropping 32-bit?

1. A lot of computers can run Vista but do not support 64bit.
2. Switching from 8bit to 16bit and from 16bit to 32bit gave immediate advantages. Running a 64 bit OS with less than 4GB RAM gives no advantages whatsoever.

If Microsoft was really interested in moving the computing public towards 64bit OS aggressively they would price Windows Vista 64 at a lower price than the 32 bit Vista. If the cost is the same then Microsoft is agnostic about the switch.

The same goes for either Intel or AMD. If they want the public to move to 64bit OS then they will need to put their marketing dollars and development dollars towards that purpose.

Uh... because a lot of 32 bit hardware is being sold nowadays? Outside of celerons and semprons im pretty sure you'd be hard pressed to find 32 bit cpus at OEM's.

You got it backwards, because people are reluctant to do OS upgrades it makes perfect sense to make Vista 64 bit only.

Yes. Exactly. 8 to 16 bit and 16 to 32 bit doesn't count. Back in those days, people REALLY needed more memory, word processing was THE killer app for PCs.

Nowadays, most people can buy nearly any computer and have more than enough processing power.

To make a change that big everything needs to trasition on the base level first. In this case the base level is hardware, without the hardware there is no way software can run. Rein was right in saying that the release of a 32bit processor in 2006 helped hold us back.

While there are still Athlon XP's and Pentium 4 and 3's still being used ( i just went from a P-III to a C2D last monday), Vista was correct in coming out in both forms. The hardware makers, CPU makers in this case, need to make everything dual-core or better and 64bit processors in order to push the developers to write multi-threaded and 64bit apps.

Expect the next windows to be 64bit only.

Hardware leads Software.
Software depends on Hardware.

You totally missed the point. Seeing nearly ALL of Vista's sales will be in new PC's, why release a 32 bit version? Why bother with a version that does not enable aero glass? Why not only release a 64 bit version and turn all 32 bit systems into legacy hardware?

Think about it, many Intel systems sold in the last 4 years are 32 bit only, especially in mobile. And most of those have piss poor integrated graphics that can barely do ANYTHING in 3D. Intel is not too keen on people walking around saying Vista does not work AT ALL on many of their systems, which would be a reality if there was no 32 bit Vista.

So you think Intel will sell less hardware if Vista is not released? If Vista is not out there, people are going to purchase systems anyway regardless.

I'm not implying or stating that at all. BTW, Intel systems without 3rd party discreet graphics are the worst performing systems for Vista by far.

Lol, so it's still the fastest, duh.
Where did i say the opposite?
What i wanted to point out, is that it could have been even faster!
As a consequence of that, K8L will gain a certain edge clock for clock in SSE code when working in 64 bit, thanks to its 32byte fetching.

One reason why they have 32bit. Business Software.
Alot of companies run back-end systems with some sort of Gui installed locally on the PC. They may well have invested millions and do not want to reinvest in a major upgrade, just because the Gui doesn't run under a 64bit OS. I know you should be able to run a 32bit App under 64bit windows, but they don't want to take the risk.

Another reason, they may want to upgrade to Vista for the security features it offers, but they don't want to throw away an investment and upgrade 1000s of machines that they may well have invested in say 2 years ago, based on core duos or celerons.

The issue with servers is a whole different problem. The server realm NEEDS 64-bit, desktops do not. Also, I'm coming from the perspective of a company that actively uses a half dozen applications that are, at least in some part, 16-bit apps. There are a great many "32-bit" apps out there that use 16-bit installers, for example. Others use 16-bit libraries. There are volumes of legacy applications that use the 16-bit subsystem as well.

Point is, with the way Microsoft implemented 64-bit Vista by excluding support for the 16-bit subsystem, they alienated a large part of their market from being able to upgrade. My company, for instance, simply cannot move to 64-bit Vista because of this limitation. I know with certainty that my company is not in the minority on this.

As someone else mentioned, there is also a HUGE volume of PC's out there in use that do not even support 64-bit computing. Companies are not going to buy all new PC's just to run 64-bit Vista and Microsoft would have been pretty damn stupid to think they would. A 3 GHz Pentium 4 can still run most business apps these days with room to spare using XP. What is the compelling reason for a business to switch to 64-bit computers and software on the desktop?

Of course sooner or later, machines with 4GB+ RAM will be common.

The point is that right now, probably 99%+ of all PCs have less than that and would gain NOTHING by going 64bit.

I would bet my paycheck that any game that wants to sell to the mainstream market will not REQUIRE a 64-bit OS for the next 5 years. There will be some games for sure, but the vast majority will not. And I'd even wager that those games that do come out with 64-bit versions will also have 32-bit versions over these next 5 years.

Most of the games today still work on Windows 2000. Things change slowly in the mainstream.

I am referring to RAM requirements, not the game design requirements. to get reasonable FPS in a demanding game of any kind (32 bit or 64 bit), you need more RAM as the game gets more demanding. This will continue to increase in the future, regardless of whether the game itself requires a 32 or 64bit OS. if the 32bit OS could handle 4gb+ of RAM it would not matter, but it does NOT.