[SGVLUG] 64 bit computing

[Christopher Smith]

matti wrote:
> OK... so.. I was wondering which chips are 64 bit
> chips now.
> 
> looks like SOME chips were partially 64 bit
> (memory addressing).. but still 32bit cores..

Either go with AMD or a Core2. They are all 64-bit enabled, and it's
hard to justify going with anything else. Beware the "Core Duos" (as
opposed to "Core2 Duo"), as they aren't nearly the same thing and are
32-bit chips.

Intel has for the longest time shipped chips with PAE support, which
allows them to address memory with a 36-bit address space, so you can
get up to 64GB of RAM with that setup, but it tends to run more slowly.

> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64-bit
> 
> I believe MS main OSes are still only 32bit?
> (but maybe 64bit for memory handling?)

Nope. I'm running 64-bit Vista at home right now. Most of the software
you'd buy for Windows is 32-bit, and you generally want to run IE in
32-bit mode so that plugins work properly.

FYI, I recently blogged about my 64-bit "experiences":

http://xblog.xman.org/articles/2007/06/01/living-in-a-64-bit-world

--Chris