64 bit processors... a waste of money?

[ibex333]

I built my rig 2 years ago.
It has a DFI Lanparty Ultra-D, and a AMD 3200+ 64bit processor.
Since I know NOTHING about what 64bit architecture is, I simply thought it would be a good idea to get this CPU for the future.

The way I see it, 64bit technology was never really taken advantage of by ANYTHING since the day it was introduced, up to this day. The only exception is some business apps, that an average user will never touch. It seems I simply wasted my money. I would have been better off with a 32bit processor, and I wouldnt even sacrifice any performance.

I was hoping that someday I will reap the benefits of having a 64bit processor when games or apps will come out that would take advantage of all those bits, and I would rejoice that my long term investment paid off.

Now I see dual core processors being used, and even quad cores coming soon, making my CPU a piece of junk in comparison.

I just read somewhere that even with the arrival of Vista, there wont be many games or apps that will take advantage of the 64bit technology... Sounds like I really did waste my money.

The reason I made this post is I'm hoping that someone will explain if I am right or wrong and why.

Also I want to know if my mobo will support dual core and mabe even quad core CPUs if I'll want to upgrade sometime in the next 2 years.

 

[theprodigalrebel]

2 years ago, the AMD Athlon64 series were the best processors money could buy - and 64-bit compatibility had nothing to do with it. It was a stellar 32-bit chip (and still is) and you would have regretted buying a 'cheaper' 32-bit (read Intel Prescott) processor.

 

[Capt Caveman]

Exactly, what else would you have bought/built? At the time, what better option for the money would have been better?

Your mobo will support a X2 939 dual-core. Any AMD Quad-core cpus will be for their newer AM2/AM3 platforms.

 

[ibex333]

actually, you guys make a good point.. for that time I didnt have otehr choices i guess...

Still, it's sad how the 64bit extention is nothing more than a fancy name.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: ibex333
actually, you guys make a good point.. for that time I didnt have otehr choices i guess...

Still, it's sad how the 64bit extention is nothing more than a fancy name.

If you used the Linux OS, this post would have been praising the fact that your processor was 64-bit. It isn't AMD's fault that Intel $$talked$$ Micro$oft into not having a good 64-bit OS for the average user, is it?

 

[RichUK]

Originally posted by: ibex333
actually, you guys make a good point.. for that time I didnt have otehr choices i guess...

Still, it's sad how the 64bit extention is nothing more than a fancy name.

I think AMD at the release of their 64bit branded processors, had their main focus on marketing. AMD had a big battle trying to break through the Pentium brand, and putting a big fat 64 next to the Athlon brand name helped push processors for the consumer end user market. Or help generate more interest in the OEM?s that carried AMD?s 64bit processors. Why, because big numbers always sells, for the misinformed or unaware consumers, they just assume that it?s the next big thing and buy in.

Intel only introduced 64bit extensions when they did to keep a level playing field in processor features. You?ll notice that they don?t really draw much attention to that added feature as AMD did.

FYI, the only practical impact 64bit processing has to offer to the likes of home users, is the benefit of using more memory. Only then will you see the benefit, but of course software hasn?t really generated a need at this point in time, so the need for more than 4gig?s of memory address space hasn't really occurred (with the enterprise market aside). Thus 32bit processing has sufficed for so long. (Also with the PAE argument aside, as the average user will never come across this feature)

 

[her34]

by the time more than 4gb of ram is needed it'll probably be time for a new os

 

[alent1234]

back in the day when intel first came out with 32bit CPU's, it took close to 10 years to make the transition if not longer

 

[lyssword]

wtf is 64 bit for?

 

[sandorski]

It is inevitable that 64bit will become a necessity.

 

[Keysplayr]

Windows 3.x was 16-bit OS, and if I'm not mistaken, so was early Win95 (but I believe it had the 32-bit converter in it.) But by then, we already had 32-bit processors for a while. Was 386 2-bit? I forget. I know 486 was.

 

[sandorski]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Windows 3.x was 16-bit OS, and if I'm not mistaken, so was early Win95 (but I believe it had the 32-bit converter in it.) But by then, we already had 32-bit processors for a while. Was 386 2-bit? I forget. I know 486 was.

2bit? I'm pretty sure 8086/88 were 8bit, 286/386 were 16bit, not sure what 486 was(you're probably right), Pentium was 32bit

 

[dmens]

386 onwards supported IA-32.

 

[sandorski]

ahh, makes sense.

 

[tatteredpotato]

If you develop software, you are not going to spend time making a good 64 bit version if there is no 64 bit hardware. Now that we have a good foundation of 64 bit hardware on the market, and with a good 64 bit OS coming out (not saying that Linux is not good, its just not an option for most consumers) i think 64 bit apps will become more commonplace.

 

[BrownTown]

We'll, all the decent processors nowadays support 64-bit, so you are sorta stuck with it even if you arent gonna use it. Its not a big deal, i'm sure the % of the die that uses it isnt too big, and it will ensure compatibilityt with upcoming software.

 

[IEC]

64-bit AMD procs aren't a waste - until C2D and C2S came out they were the fastest and coolest procs you could buy - best $$$/perf ratio.

 

[Kromis]

Originally posted by: ariafrost
64-bit AMD procs aren't a waste - until C2D and C2S came out they were the fastest and coolest procs you could buy - best $$$/perf ratio.

Lol...you sure know when to bash'em...

 

[Furen]

8086 was 16 bits, 8088 was 16 bits but had an 8-bit external bus (8086 was too expensive to implement, so Intel made a "Celeron").

 

[GFORCE100]

Originally posted by: Furen
8086 was too expensive to implement, so Intel made a "Celeron".

Do you know IT or just trying to understand it?

Celerons are also a 8086 at heart as all Intel CPU's since the 8086. This is why processors today still cary the x86 nomenclature. The latter represents a set of instructions.

Also if you wish to throw Celeron into the mix, throw it in the right context. What you meant to say and confused is when Intel brought out the Convington core in 1998 which was a Deschutes core without any L2 cache. This is when the Celeron was born. Intel soon fixed its negative performance delta by releasing the Medocino core with 128KB L2 cache at full CPU speed.

Why AMD introduced 64bit back in late 2003 is another topic altogether and was a marketing move. Every serious person in the IT industry knows 64bit would never catch on with the consumer for various reasons. All the marketing people at AMD had to do is convince you how superior it is. Since 95% of consumers know next to nothing about computers it's been loudly spoken since. Industry analysis will confirm if asked that the only reason AMD made all this fuss about 64bit in 2003 was because they had big financial losses and had to increase sales.

Just as politics, it's easy to steer any nation whose inhabitants know too little about economics, warface, business as all you do is speak what the people want to hear, not what is the truth. For marketing, the public is poor in IT knowledge, tell them something that sounds good and the magic works.

There is no real need for the consumer to even need 64bit software as of today and expect this until about 2010.

 

[zephyrprime]

Originally posted by: sandorski

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003
Windows 3.x was 16-bit OS, and if I'm not mistaken, so was early Win95 (but I believe it had the 32-bit converter in it.) But by then, we already had 32-bit processors for a while. Was 386 2-bit? I forget. I know 486 was.

2bit? I'm pretty sure 8086/88 were 8bit, 286/386 were 16bit, not sure what 486 was(you're probably right), Pentium was 32bit

The 8088/8086 were 16bit processors. The 8088 only had an 8bit memory interface though. Both could support 20bit memory spaces with the help of paging. You'll notice that paging still exists in the form of PAE to break the 4GB barrier more recent processors.

The 286 was also a 16bit processor but was nonetheless a LOT faster than the 88/86. It supported up the 16MB of memory with paging but this was a feature that was rarely used because compiler companies sucked majorly back then.

The 386 & 486 were 32bit processors. The 386sx only had a 12bit memory interface. The 486sx had no FPU.

The Pentium, P2, P3, and early P4s were all 32bit processors.

Later P4's supported 64bit operation.

Windows 3.x was a hybrid 32bit/16bit os. It supported some 32bit features but still relied on some 16bit code. It actually relied on DOS to an extent but that reliance was reduced with later versions of Windows 3.11

Windows 95 was more 32bit.

 

[zephyrprime]

Originally posted by: GFORCE100

Originally posted by: Furen
8086 was too expensive to implement, so Intel made a "Celeron".

Do you know IT or just trying to understand it?

He's correct. The 8086 was basically the celeron of its day.

 

[GFORCE100]

Originally posted by: zephyrprime

Originally posted by: GFORCE100

Originally posted by: Furen
8086 was too expensive to implement, so Intel made a "Celeron".

Do you know IT or just trying to understand it?

He's correct. The 8086 was basically the celeron of its day.

8086 was the Celeron of 1981-2? Because the 286 was just opening its eyes? I guess if you clasify the previous version of processors (8086) as the Celeron to the new upcoming version (286), then you could see it that way. There were also 80186's though not popular. Anything before 8080, 8008, 4004 was not x86.

And Celeron is the same as economy version, no computer was cheap in 1981 right until 1990 to go calling it as economy.

 

[zephyrprime]

Whoops. I meant to say that the 8088 was the celeron of its day. The 8086 was the high end model.

 

[sxr7171]

Originally posted by: ibex333
I built my rig 2 years ago.
It has a DFI Lanparty Ultra-D, and a AMD 3200+ 64bit processor.
Since I know NOTHING about what 64bit architecture is, I simply thought it would be a good idea to get this CPU for the future.

The way I see it, 64bit technology was never really taken advantage of by ANYTHING since the day it was introduced, up to this day. The only exception is some business apps, that an average user will never touch. It seems I simply wasted my money. I would have been better off with a 32bit processor, and I wouldnt even sacrifice any performance.

I was hoping that someday I will reap the benefits of having a 64bit processor when games or apps will come out that would take advantage of all those bits, and I would rejoice that my long term investment paid off.

Now I see dual core processors being used, and even quad cores coming soon, making my CPU a piece of junk in comparison.

I just read somewhere that even with the arrival of Vista, there wont be many games or apps that will take advantage of the 64bit technology... Sounds like I really did waste my money.

The reason I made this post is I'm hoping that someone will explain if I am right or wrong and why.

Also I want to know if my mobo will support dual core and mabe even quad core CPUs if I'll want to upgrade sometime in the next 2 years.

You are wrong. You didn't pay more for a 64-bit proc. You just got what was the best proc for your money. You did not waste your money.



Also, please stop whining. 64 bit will eventually come into play. You are not losing money over it.