How long until 64-bit catches on?

[onlinebacon]

So, I was sitting here, thinking. How long do you all think it will take for 64-bit to really be used, as in, need to be used?

I think...well...i dont know..

Anyone?

[techieMoe]

When someone comes up with some killer feature/app/thing that everyone (read: big businesses) needs. Until then most of the consumer world will continue to truck along on 32-bit processors or run 32-bit software on 64-bit processors.

At the moment, there's not been a great deal of software that really takes advantage of the X86_64 instruction set, whether it be in the FOSS arena or the commercial one. Microsoft's XP 64-bit turned out to be mostly a joke (up there with WindowsME) and very few people bought it. There are plenty of 64-bit Linux distributions out there but none of them offer any tangible advantage over running regular X86 code other than bragging rights, and are they really worth the software issues? For me they're not.

I'm still waiting for a program like Blender or anything by Adobe/Macromedia to go 64-bit and really take advantage of the new processor's power. That will certainly help the market.

[carlosponti]

i think when windows switched to 32 bit it was a long process as well. i dont remember but it seemed like the 32 bit versions of windows came years after the first 32 bit processors were on the market. its been a while since all that happened so i dont remember it now.

[Roxoff]

At my company, we're already experiencing some of this (albeit on a small scale). We do emc and heat analysis for electronic systems and larger composites, and some of the models our software analyses are getting large. 32bit processors are limited to 2Gb of memory, and this is a ceiling which is effectively removed by the arrival of 64bit. As time goes on more and more of our customers will require 64 bit versions for these reasons alone.

On the other side of the coin - I cant see me re-implementing my mail server using anyting other than it's current pair of PIII/733/slot 1's just yet. Or ever.

[PsypherPunk]

Until they release a game that looks even prettier when using 64bit systems (UT64?).

[onlinebacon]

Fair enough, I guess the real question I should have asked is: "Is it worth getting a 64-bit machine yet?"

[DThor]

Short answer - no. 64 bit is really only terribly useful for huge honking servers that need to process massive amounts of data and/or processes, not for the workstation. Perhaps if you're doing things with digital imagery, data, simulations, etc it might be useful, but really 64 bit *right now* just means less available memory to play with, buggier apps that have floating point issues while trying to maintain consistency between 32 and 64 bit versions, and buggier drivers.

That's not to say it's where everything is headed...just like IPV6 and other changes, it will be inevitable, but there's no real reason to get it *now*. This is changing as I write this, though. It's definitely approaching the cusp. I started 64 bit at work and it only brought me headaches, but now I've found stable configurations of hw/sw(with HP/NVidia/Suse in my case) and I'm not moving. In some ways it's more stable that many of our 32 bit systems...but it was a pain getting there. This obviously is improving monthly, though.

32 bit is going to be around for a while. I wouldn't worry about getting left in the dust...yet.

DT

[techieMoe]

Fair enough, I guess the real question I should have asked is: "Is it worth getting a 64-bit machine yet?"

Yes- but not for 64-bit games. The AMD64 chips run 32-bit games better than their 32-bit counterparts, at least in my experience. A 32-bit Athlon running Doom 3 at 2.2gHz with the same video hardware, RAM, and harddrive speed will not perform as well as an AMD64 at the same clockspeed.

[carlosponti]

plus its getting difficult to find a processor that isnt 64bit now on places like new egg. the prices have come down considerably since they first arrived. intel still hasnt released one as of yet have they? the athlon FX 64 bit was supposed to be a good processor for gaming but they were 900 when they first came out. i honestly dont think it will hurt to go with 64 bit but there is not alot out that will take advantage of it. i have been delaying so that i can get a system with 64 bit cpu with a PCI-E card slot. on it. i think they are trying to eventually replace PCI with PCI-E and get rid of having two standards for video than eveything else. that would be awesome a PCI-E raid card with two Serial ATA drives in a striped array.

[techieMoe]

plus its getting difficult to find a processor that isnt 64bit now on places like new egg. the prices have come down considerably since they first arrived. intel still hasnt released one as of yet have they?

Intel hasn't released a "64-bit-specific" model of processor, but they have quietly added EM64T functionality (essentially the X86_64 instruction set) to some of their high-end Pentium CPUs.

i think they are trying to eventually replace PCI with PCI-E and get rid of having two standards for video than eveything else.

AGP-to-PCIe will move along about as fast as PCI-to-AGP did. Some companies like Nvidia are pushing it hard by releasing twice as many PCIe cards as AGP ones in an attempt to push out AGP once and for all. Most new boards I see these days have PCIe.

that would be awesome a PCI-E raid card with two Serial ATA drives in a striped array.

I never quite understood the logic behind running RAID on a home system. Does anyone short of a server farm really NEED the functionality of RAID? It just seems to me like something the uber-geek does for bragging rights.