This is for everyone who doesn't know what the difference between 32 and 64 bit is. I found this on Google, it's very informative!
devresource.hp.com/STK/partner/64what.pdf
devresource.hp.com/STK/partner/64what.pdf
Originally posted by Anon
Ya know, something has been bothering me about the whole 64-bit processors let you do 64-bit integers and larger address spaces. While the larger address space thing is kind of a big deal since we now have 1 Gig DIMMS and it won't be that long before we have 4Gig Memory modules. But the 64-bit integer thing is big whoop, who really needs to add 2 64-bit numbers.
This attitude is simplistic and it completely ignores what data is. 64 bit registers will allow you to double the amount of data you can process in one opperation. Take text processing for example. Instead of working on 4 characters or bytes in one operation you now can work on 8 characters. Take 32bit graphics. You load half of the data in the high 32-bits and the other half in the lower 32-bits. Take any bit of data of any size and you can chomp through it twice as fast. You have doubled your throughput without increasing your mhz or ghz speed.
64-bit color depth would presumably mean 16-bit fields
for RGB and one for Alpha
Originally posted by Anon
This attitude is simplistic and it completely ignores what data is. 64 bit registers will allow you to double the amount of data you can process in one opperation. Take text processing for example. Instead of working on 4 characters or bytes in one operation you now can work on 8 characters. Take 32bit graphics. You load half of the data in the high 32-bits and the other half in the lower 32-bits. Take any bit of data of any size and you can chomp through it twice as fast. You have doubled your throughput without increasing your mhz or ghz speed.
Originally posted by ktlx
This is not even close to correct. It does not work for simple adds or subtracts let alone anything as complicated as a multiple, divide or shift. The same is true of 32-bit CPUs--you don't treat the 32-bits as four separate 8-bit or two separate 16-bit numbers for calculations.
A quick paper calculation of multiplying two sets of two 32-bit numbers will demonstrate this will not work. If you want to spend even more time, try all of the basic ALU operations: add, subtract, multiply, divide, shift left and shift right. You will find that none of them work correctly except in very special cases.
Originally posted by maxvamp
I guess I am what you would call a switcher. I was an OS/2 to Windows NT to LINUX/UNIX to MacOSX ( better UNIX ) switcher. I now only use OSX and Windows 98 ( and then, only for 1 application )
Having said that, I have to say that this has been a fun discussion to watch. I want to put the memory concerns of this new processor to rest by simply saying that I would be shocked if Apple didn't user DDR 2 ( see http://www.commsdesign.com/design_c...EG20021016S0038 ). This would satisfy the memory bandwidth needs of this new chip.
Second, as for the no performance gain, coupled with the faster P4 mantra, I have to say that there are some mis-informed people here. I suggest that we start a new thread and have everyone list the top 5 apps they use on the mac. This is what would clearly define any performance gain a user would or wouldn't see.
The reason I suggest this is that many high performance app developers on the window side ( and I am sure Mac too ) have been working with 64 bits for a while in their 32-bit applications. Even MS in several of their APIs will divide their values returned from objects in two 32bit chunks that must be reassembled into the original 64 bit values. I myself have seen this in file system operations in the Win32 writing I have done.
Since such operations described above require two ticks of the proc to process, I would take a slower 64 bit AMD or PPC processor in a heart beat over a much faster p4 for hard core applications. So a 5 GHz p4 at best on these types of apps still only keeps up with a 64 bit at half it's speed. An OS optimised for 64-bits make this more so.
Now, will every app see a difference? No.
If my average apps I use often are only Quicken, Mail, IExplorer, iChat, Word, etc. then a 2.4 GHz P4 will be snappier than a 1.8 PPC or AMD. If your average apps are DVD Studio, Final Cut Pro, Maya, Cinema4D, etc. then a 64 system will be an improvement. I won't even go into databases, except to say that in the future, more and more apps will start using them. Need proof ? iPhoto and iTunes both are primitive apps that use a crude database to track your data. Overtime, more and more apps with get more advanced in this idea, and you may see OSs come out with master Databases built into them that iApps, as well as other apps can use natively.
So, with all of this said, What are the apps you use on a daily basis?
Let the flames begin,
Max.