Re: Fear of the 64, was OT: PC burn out.

["Bryan J. Smith" <b.j.smith@ieee.org>]

NZG <ngustavson@emacinc.com> wrote:
> I know it, the writing is certainly on the wall.

AMD _killed_ 32-bit Athlon last year.  All you can find are
old, discontinued production models, and even the Socket-462
Sempron is hard to find.  Most people don't know, but the
PAE52 Athlons/Opterons are the exact same core design as the
PAE36 Athlons.

That's why AMD was able to switchover so quickly.  The
original 1999 Athlon design used the same 40-bit interconnect
of the Digital EV6 / Alpha 264.  The Athlon64/Opteron improve
on the design, and add a multi-point bus (with various
improvements) -- many of those learned from the design of the
Athlon MP.

_All_ current Athlons -- 32-bit or 64-bit (including Opteron)
-- share the same, physical 40-bit addressing limitation.

> Shopping for processors I can see all the new AMD 64's down
> there in the $70-$90 dollar range. (I don't want to shell
> out over $200 for a high end IA32 Intel)

The best desktop Pentiums you can buy for Linux are the
Socket-479 Pentium Ms, the same ones used in notebooks.  But
you'll pay for them.

> But I still fear the 64 bit processor.

Considering the AMD64 designs are _no_different_ when it
comes to PAE36 mode than their 32-bit predecessors (which
share the same, core design), they are no less compatible
when running a PAE36 operating system.

In fact, Intel's P4 has a history of breaking some pre-i686
ISA compatibility, whereas AMD still does not with even the
Opteron.

> I'm running a lot of high end applications (Java,

If you're running a Linux/x86 (PAE36) OS, then _nothing_
changes -- the AMD64 processor runs in PAE36 mode
_unchanged_.

Sun only recently added a Linux/x86-64 JDK/JRE.
But even I still run the x86 version, including with Firefox
i386, on Linux/x86-64 (PAE52).

> Eclipse,

Again, no change!

> Transgaming's WineX, etc...)

Actually, because of how Wine works, it is a standalone PAE36
machine _regardless_ of whether or not the OS is PAE52 or
PAE36.  I'm running Cedega (WineX) under Linux/x86-64 on my
Athlon 64 with my old Wine tree from my earlier Athlon MP
setup.

> and I am unsure how well this is going to work in the
> 64 bit world.

Then don't run a PAE52 (Linux/x86-64) distro.
Just run a PAE36 (Linux/x86) on it.
_Nothing_ changes if you do.

> Are my fears unfounded?

Yes, considering _all_ Athlon64/Opterons execute PAE36 (x86)
OSes _exactly_ like Athlon.



-- 
Bryan J. Smith                | Sent from Yahoo Mail
mailto:b.j.smith@ieee.org     |  (please excuse any
http://thebs413.blogspot.com/ |   missing headers)

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