64-bit firepower

64-bit processors are promising a bigger, faster future. Make the switch now and leap into the next computing age.

64-bit processors are burning up the competition and promising a bigger, faster future. But why wait? Make the switch now and leap into the next computing age.

We’d all love to think of the 64-bit revolution as a gigantic leap in the technical evolution of the world, a proverbial flamethrower of performance potential hosing away the 32-bit shackles of old. Ultimately, that’s what’s happening. In a few short years 64-bit machines will be the standard, and 32-bit will fall into obsolescence. The hardware is already here, and has been for a while, all that remains is for software to play catch-up.

Right now however, for the majority of the market, there’s no pressing need to make the switch. Joe Fancypants isn’t going to care if he can browse www.bigbeefymomas.com or type up an email to granny on a 64-bit platform. It makes no difference to him for the moment. But it does to people like us, people passionate about our hobby, the early adopters.

Because lets be honest – we love the numbers. We love having the biggest and baddest mofo machines on the planet. And naturally, because 64-bit is all about the numbers, we want it. It’s in our veins. We’re part of the driving force that allows technology like 64-bit to enjoy such a rapid uptake.

And, now that Microsoft has released Windows XP x64, it’s a great time for just about anyone to get involved and dip their toe into the next generation of computing power that will run the world for decades to come.

But as has been undoubtedly said between the romantically inclined, bigger is only better if you know how to use it. If you don’t mind getting your hands dirty and tinkering with your OS to get everything working sweet on a 64-bit platform (which really, is half the fun) then now is as good a time as any to make the switch – while the silicon is still hot, while there’s still new territory to discover.

So here we are, with the Atomic 64-bit migration guide, the best view of the hardware and software you need to make the switch here and now.

Intel's Pentium 4 3.73GHz EE with the EM64T instruction set. Power baby!

What it really means

The advent of 64-bitness isn’t new. The first commercially available 64-bit processor was DEC’s Alpha back in 1992. However 64-bit processors for the PC platform as we know it today are a fairly recent development, with the Athlon 64 range only making an entrance in 2003.

Even so, uptake has been slow, and with good reason – cost aside, support isn’t a high priority (just yet) for many developers. Microsoft only recently released the 64-bit version of Windows XP, and though Linux has supported it for a while, most of the mainstream world is oblivious to Linux (‘What, that some kind of dietary fibre supplement?’)

For people like us however, conversant as we are in a multitude of operating systems, there is good reason to upgrade to 64-bit now. Partly because we know how to take advantage of it, and partly because it’s just plain fun to own it. 64-bit processors are inherently faster due to architectural advances, but the performance of these chips is truly unleashed when running 64-bit operating systems and applications. For this, they leave 32-bit in the dust.

So just what can you expect when you go 64-bit?

To be fair, it depends what you want to do. The principal advantage of 64-bit CPUs is the ability to address and manipulate larger values. A 32-bit CPU can only ‘see’ a maximum of 4GB of memory. It can’t use any more because it simply can’t count that high. A 64-bit CPU, by comparison, can address some seventeen billion gigabytes (!). Additionally, a 64-bit CPU can process 64-bit numbers. In some cases, depending on the software, this means doing in one clock cycle what a 32-bit processor has to do in two. Add to this that a 64-bit CPU contains 64-bit ALUs, 64-bit registers, and is capable of transferring more data per clock cycle to I/O paths and it all adds up to a significant performance boost, as long as software is written or compiled to take advantage of it.

Ultimately, applications like a word processor are never going to ‘feel’ any faster, simply because they don’t need the power. Video, sound, or crypto intensive tasks; compiling a kernel; or playing a 64-bit game can be a different matter however. At this stage, performance differences will depend on whether a 32-bit application has simply been recompiled for 64-bit, or whether it has been re-programmed to take advantage of 64-bit features. Never the less, there is one performance boosting advantage in simply moving to a 64-bit platform due to technical advances, and another (sometimes significant) boost in using operating systems and applications (yes, even games!) designed to take full advantage of the capabilities a 64-bit platform has to offer.

AMD's Athlon 64 FX-55 is a power house processor running 32-bit and 64-bit code with equal speed.

Compatibility

Fortunately, AMD and Intel’s offerings for 64-bit CPUs are backward compatible with 32-bit, and you can run both 32-bit and 64-bit programs under 64-bit Windows and 64-bit Linux, with the right software support, making it relatively easy to make the transition while retaining full functionality of your system – in most cases, anyway.

For the moment though there is still a dearth of 64-bit applications across both platforms, and it won’t necessarily help you for the majority of tasks – but that isn’t what interests us is it? No, it’s more about the numbers. It’s the power and the prestige. The sheer speed these processors run at, and the impressive performance boost we can get from native 64-bit code. Even if it just surfing around www.atomicmpc.com.au with a 64-bit Firefox!