64-bit processors

[Asmodeus]

i heard desktop PCs are soon to be a thing of that past anyway.. apaprently a new style of computers are to be released where you buy what u need seperately rather than in a package.

i have no idea how its working, but someone i know in the computer industry told me not to buy a PC for a year or so to see what happens..

thats just what i heard anyway

It's better to buy your parts seperate anyway. People have been doing it for a long long while now. Buying through Dell, Gateway or any other company like them is just a rip off. I should know, I bought a Dell.

[Asmodeus]

After some problems with a PSU that was delivered DOA I finally got my new system up and running B)

Case: CoolerMaster STC-T01 Stacker
PSU:: Tagan TG480
Motherboard: Asus A8N-SLI Deluxe
Processor: AMD Athlon 3500+ (Winchester)
Memory: Corsair TWINX 3200XL 512 MB; 2x (matched pair)
Videocard: Powercolor X850XT
Soundcard: Creative Audigy 2 ZS Platinum
Hard drive(s): Maxtor DiamondMax 10; SATA; 200 GB; 2x


The system is air cooled by four 80mm fans and two 120mm fans (all low noise thankfully), excluding the northbridge and cpu cooler fans, but still the OC results of the Athlon 64 are impressive. I'm very pleased with the Athlon 64 processor, and I would definitely recommend it.

I'm planning on getting the AMD Athlon 3200+ (Venice) with a MSI nForce4 SLI mobo, and a 128MB GeForce 6600GT graphics card, and a 300GB Seagate HD with a 16MB cache. I'm gonna have so much fun....!

[Darkmoor]

Hmm... going back to the original question of this thread. I would recommend that certain people read these:

Ars Technica: Understanding the Microprocessor
Ars Technica: An Introduction to 64-bit Computing and x86-64

Hopefully this will clear some of the confusion and misinformation. Lastly a few selected quotes from the above articles:

In more specific terms, the labels "64-bit," 32-bit," etc. designate the number of bits that each of the processor's general-purpose registers (GPRs) can hold. So when someone uses the term "64-bit processor," what they mean is "a processor with GPRs that store 64-bit numbers." And in the same vein, a "64-bit instruction" is an instruction that operates on 64-bit numbers.

The take-home point here is that only applications that require and use 64-bit integers will see a performance increase on 64-bit hardware that is due solely to a 64-bit processor's wider registers and increased dynamic range. So there's no magical performance boost inherent in the move from 32 bits to 64 bits, as people are often led to think by journalists who write things like, "64-bit computers can processes twice as much data per clock cycle as their 32-bit counterparts." Technically, this is true in a very restricted sense, but it would be better to say the following: "64-bit computers can process numbers that are 4.3 billion times as large as those processed by their 32-bit counterparts." It sounds a lot less sexy because it is, but at least no one is misled into thinking that 64-bitness makes a computer somehow twice as fast.

[Edify]

this thread has been revived more times than an undead warrior.

[a21ozcoldcup]

this thread has been revived more times than an undead warrior.

I don't know why I bother spending money on quality computer components. I've made Subspace as pretty as it can get and no amount upgrades will change that at this point.. my friends keep trying to get me to play these new fangled games that are all fancy and 3D and stuff..

[winipcfg]

a21, do you look at the dates when you read threads? The last time this thread was posted in was a year ago.

...plz.

[a21ozcoldcup]

a21, do you look at the dates when you read threads? The last time this thread was posted in was a year ago.

...plz.

Okay this one was intentional.. in spirit of the fact that it was already brought back from the dead several times before. You'll notice these two were the only two "dead" threads I touched. It's OHH KAY man.. and to everyone else. heh.. sorry if I offended your sensibilities regarding old threads in TW Forums. I'll stick to only new stuff unless I have pertinent .. well. yeah whatever. I'll make sure not to annoy anyone else with the old stuff...

[duel pasta]

I'll make sure not to annoy anyone else with the old stuff...

Yet, you keep doing it...

[a21ozcoldcup]

Yet, you keep doing it...

I'm done! I swear. No more comments in here.. from me or you guys!

[Subjugation]

I dunno. I don't really think it's such a bad thing since Vista is scheduled to be released in less than a year. Just as long as the bumping is actually a relevant comment, and helpful to others.

Plus, with prices dropping on the older AMDx2's, since M2 is on the market, you can actually get a pretty kickass dual core for $300 bucks.