64-BIT PROCESSING: Evolving Bit By Bit

64-bit computing was the buzzword in recent times, but it did create ample
confusion as well. While many found themselves caught in the debate of 32-bit vs
64-bit, others wanted to know whether they should opt for Intel’s Itanium or
AMD’s Opteron.

64-bit computing has been in existence for a while now. But with both Intel
and AMD coming up with their 64-bit offerings for the mainstream enterprise
market, a good amount of enthusiasm got created recently.

What 64-bit computing essentially means is support for more memory, more
expandability and more scalability. Any application that is outgrowing a 32-bit
computing environment suffers performance hits.

And keeping all this in mind chipmakers like Intel and AMD both have come out
with their versions of 64-bit computing.

Intel developed an architecture called the IA-64 for its Itanium line of
64-bit microprocessor. This is not an x86 (or IA-32, as Intel calls it) chip,
but a clean new processor. It is still able to run older x86 32-bit programs,
but at a slower speed than the current Pentium processors.

MARKET IMPECT Offers support for more memory, more expandability and more scalability Applications requiring more code or data in memory will benefit and database inquiries can be made as much as 100 times faster Wide choice of operating systems and applications will be made available to support the technology Newer applications can be built around 64-bit computing thus taking the technology to mainstream enterprise market

Interestingly, the Itanium 2 doesn’t offer any great advancement on speed
front but rather through on-chip performance tweaks and 3MB of L3 cache. The
Itanium 2 also doesn’t address the biggest problem that Intel’s 64-bit
architecture faces.

AMD, on the other hand, has followed a very clever strategy by making their
64-bit processors Opteron and Athlon 64 more attractive by using their existing
32 bit x86 code base. This helps the company avoid getting into the race of
seeking independent software vendors develop 64-bit applications for the
processor.

Also as the new chips originally support the x86 architecture, they are able
to run 32-bit code faster than the Athlon XP as well as 64-bit programs.

Additionally, Opteron also debuts at a time when recession-hit IT managers
are more likely to favor economical and scalable architectures. AMD has come up
with the unique value proposition of being compatible with 32-bit legacy systems
while still offering the capabilities of 64-bit processing.

DIFFERENT FLAVORS OF 64-BIT

Alpha are RISC (reduced instruction set computing)-based processors were the
first to reach the 1 GHz speed barrier. HP´s PA-RISC processors come with HP´s
range of servers and run HP-UX OS. The processors offer a clock speed of 1 GHz.

Power 4 processor from IBM includes a module having eight 64-bit processors
on one unit. The power requirements of the processor are huge consuming up to
500 watts of power. It is fabricated using 0.18 micron technology and contains
over 600 million transistors.

Sun´s UltraSparc III is a RISC processor. The current processor runs at 1.05
GHz and provides excellent performance on Sun workstations and servers with
Solaris OS.

GOING MAINSTREAM

While the Alpha, Sparc, Power, PA-RISC processors run proprietary OSs, the
Itanium and Opteron processors are meant for general use and they are also
attracting major software vendors to develop solution based on these processors.

This shows in the fact that Unix, Linux and Windows-based OSs are available
for the Itanium chip and Microsoft may be supporting the AMD 64-bit chips also,
whereas other processors still run software developed by the same company.

However, experts in this field say that barring few cases, we probably don’t
need 64-bit computing. Not yet. But more interestingly what remains to be seen
is whether these 64-bit processors will enter the mainstream computing arena,
where presently 32-bit CPUs rule the roost. And if they do, how soon?