[diamondgeezer]

So what's the whole 64-bit processor thing all about, then?

[EDIT] Found this whilst reading a guide on what flavour of RAM module to choose:

[Taristin]

Nintendo.

[Xelion]

its just a floating point

and this sort of explains it...

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Processors/SellAMDProducts/0,,30_177_861_1024,00.html

[Rictor]

that diagram is confusing..so you're saying that more is better? since when??

[Ryx]

[q]
Q:   What applications benefit from 64-bits?
A:   

A large number of applications and usage scenarios are likely to benefit from an AMD64 environment over a legacy x86 or proprietary 64-bit environment. Applications that do not benefit do not need to be ported, and will run at full performance in an AMD64 environment. AMD64 is most likely to benefit applications that:

• Need large memory addressing, such as those with large datasets (financial and scientific modeling applications) and host-based desktop applications (to run multiple instances simultaneously without reducing performance).
• Must manage a large number of concurrent users or application threads, such as large scale thin-client solutions, large databases and data warehouse applications for solutions in customer relationship management (CRM), supply chain management (SCM), enterprise resource planning (ERP), and digital rights management (DRM) systems.
• Provide digital content creation capabilities in such applications as computer-aided design, manufacturing, and engineering (CAD, CAM, and CAE), digital music production and video editing, and real-time media streaming solutions.
• Require mathematical precision and floating-point performance including modeling, simulation, statistics and financial analysis, imaging/video/signal processing, physics, medical research, telecommunications, encryption, and compression.
• Require large, high-performance database performance including decision support, searching and indexing, document and content management, and voice recognition.

[/q]

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Rictor
that diagram is confusing..so you're saying that more is better? since when??

Could mean that you have less process swapping to & from disks with larger memory modules.... or it could simply reflect that the largest memory modules also tend to be the most modern and hence use technological innovations.  I'm not hot on RAM, though... I'm more intereseted in software than hardware designs.

[diamondgeezer]

You lot are hard work, you know that?

[Stryke 9]

What I wanna know, what's with limited slots? They should have some kinda slot expander, so I can cram a terabyte of the **** in there if my other CPU craps out again...

Sheesh, I take an interest in hardware, and then it turns out you can barely even customize the stuff. What's the point, then?

[Xelion]

Q: Why is 64-bit technology important?  A: The need for 64-bit technology is driven by applications that require high performance and address large amounts of physical

which is RAM

and virtual memory.

which is hard drive space

32-bit computers can manage only 4 gigabytes of addressable memory

and from what I know there are 64-bit OS platforms for servers, just to name a few: z/OS (IBM Mainframe OS), Windows2003 Server and XP has just recently moved to 64-bit...but to take advantage of that you must have a 64-bit processor

– and 32-bit operating systems can address only about 2 GB.

So while your computer can use 4GB RAM your operating system will only use 2GB RAM at any one time..

AMD’s evolutionary approach to 64-bit technology allows the gradual software transition from 32-bit to 64-bit. AMD64 is designed to provide superior performance for applications requiring multi-processor scalability, larger addressable memory, video/audio/3D processing, or high computational accuracy.

As stated you don't or won't need a 64-bit processing platform unless you require superior performance, which in this case everyone here probably does sooner or later...

[GT-Keravnos]

You want to model in 3d? You NEED memory, and lots of it!

You have Win 2000 or XP? You NEED memory, and lots of it!

You play all the current FPS? U2, UT2003 and DOOM3? You NEED memory and lots of it!

Conclusion: You NEED memory and lots of it!

[Stryke 9]

Not really. I have **** for memory, and can handle just about any model you could find. Once it gets in the billions of polys range it ****s out a little more often than otherwise, granted, but that'd only be for FMV work and such, anyway, which only pros need to do.

Can't necessarily vouch for gaming, as I don't play anything particularly technically trying (insert multiple paragraphs of nasty comments about how bad modern games are, I can't be bothered and there's probably an exception I just can't think of... ever, really), but Hegemonia seems to run fine on that front the one time every eon I play it.

[Stealth]

Originally posted by diamondgeezer
You lot are hard work, you know that?

hahaha yeah.  this thread is kodak picture perfect, i wish it were possible to take pictures of threads and save them forever, because some of them crack me up, like... most of the first 3 or 4 replies were off-topic... and didn't help much

Stryke's replies always crack me up the most... his and an0n's:

What I wanna know, what's with limited slots? They should have some kinda slot expander, so I can cram a terabyte of the **** in there if my other CPU craps out again...

Sheesh, I take an interest in hardware, and then it turns out you can barely even customize the stuff. What's the point, then?

HAHAHAAHAH... hilarious.


anyways, word on the street is that most, if not ALL applications at the moment, won't make use of the 64-bit technology.  it's like when Intel came out with the XP processor months before Windows XP came out, and nothing at the time could benefit from the XP Processor's technology.  i say don't get it yet... wait for things to come out that actually use it first.

[Stealth]

Originally posted by Max


(physical)
which is RAM

(virtual)
which is hard drive space

isn't it the other way round?  isn't VIRTUAL space the RAM, and PHYSICAL the hard drive?

[karajorma]

Originally posted by Stealth
isn't it the other way round?  isn't VIRTUAL space the RAM, and PHYSICAL the hard drive?

Nope. Phyical memory is memory your computer has. Virtual memory is memory your computer pretends to have by using space on the hard drive. Hence virtual.

[Xelion]

Thanks karajorma for reconfirming that

[aldo_14]

Originally posted by Stryke 9
What I wanna know, what's with limited slots? They should have some kinda slot expander, so I can cram a terabyte of the **** in there if my other CPU craps out again...
 

Limited address space.... there's only a finite amount your hardware can reference, because it has to store the memory locations in registers.

Not just memory, though.... data bus latency (& size - how much you can actually move to the CPU and how fast) & cache size would also have a part.  Not to mention the overhead of shuffling stuff from RAM, to the CPU, to the AGP card.... the X-box and Gamecube both have their GPUs connected directly to the memory, rather than the CPU handling it (as in PCs).  The PS2 is a bit nutty from what I remeber, so it uses another system... something like only 4k fast memory but massive 1GB bandwidth, I think.

EDIT:  Incidentally, 64 bit addressing would allow more than 4GB memory.... 32bit allows 2^32 unique memory locations - so 64 bit would allow 2^64 locations.

[kasperl]

that would be 18446744073709551616

2^32 is 4294967296

now, that would multiply the amount of adresses by 4294967296.

[Admiral LSD]

32-bit computers can manage only 4 gigabytes of addressable memory

Can't Intel P6 class processors (Pentium Pro's, II's, III's, their respective Celeron/Xeon variants and I think even the P4) address more than 4Gb, like 36Gb or something?

[CP5670]

Anything that improves floating-point performance is good. (perfect for those numerical integrals )