Ali,
I do not see much of advantage here. The 64-bit platform
is useful only to big enterprise servers and few
computational scientists. While the latter could
immediately benefit from 64-bit platform, they are
very few in numbers.
I agree about the need for 64-bit apps on the desktop, at this point. There is no need for 64-bit platform on the desktop either. The need for 2 GHz CPUs for desktop machines is limited as also.
But suppose you determine that for your needs, all you need is a 700 MHz processor. But when you go to buy one, you will realize that you can buy a 1.5 GHz and up machines for standard desktop prices. Now, are you going to buy the 700 MHz processor, or say 1.6 GHz processor?
The scenario for success of hammer (not only as a 32 bit but even as a 64 bit CPU) heavily depends on Microsoft. Suppose the Win64 becomes available, and one of these niche applications, such as the Flask or Divx (or whatever) gets recompiled into a true x86-64 app, with use of all the extra registers, basically takes full advantage of the processor.
Now someone posts the score, which is let's say 80% better than the next fastest processor, and the whole thing starts a grass roots campaign on Internet in favor of Hammer.
Forget the fact that say 1 1/2 years from now, the speed of ripping and encoding DVDs will outrun the speed DVD drives, people will be hooked. Who in real world should care about the speed of MP3 encoding, if since the fastest processors outrun the ability of the fastest CDs to produce the data at rate of perhaps 10:1? The same about Windows Media Encoder. But for some reason, people buy machines based on somewhat irrelevant benchmarks like these.
For better or worse, I would rather be on the beneficiary side of these meaningless benchmarks than on the side trying to explain that the benchmark results are meaningless. I think Hammer in full 64 mode will be on top of many of these benchmarks.
And I didn't even mentioned the benefit of code in the Direct X and video drivers at some point being compiled to 64 bit mode. Someone out there (Tom) will come with a huge headline for an article: "Hammer breaks 500 fps barrier" (in resolution 640x480x16bit), or about 7 times the refresh rate of the monitor.
Joe |
