GenVibe - Community for Pontiac Vibe Enthusiasts

Do you guys follow the Intel/AMD processor battle? AMD released the "Athlon 64" processor this week. Talk about high performance mod!

Love 64-Bit! Alpha forever! Seriously, I want one of these. The 64-bit software market for the "Wintel" platform needs to catch up first though. I've found very few programs that will run on my Alpha under NT without 32-bit translation. They have a long way to go to catch up to the Linux/Unix crowd.

One of the cool things about the AMD 64-bit stuff is that it maintains the 32-bit compatability, even in 64-bit mode. When running the Microsoft 64-bit windows XP, for example, a 32-bit program can theoretically run faster than if the same program was running in a 32-bit OS. That is because the OS is still taking advantage of the 64-bit architechture, as well as all of the system calls that the 32-bit app makes.

Yeah, that is a nice feature. My point is that for the money you would spend on the 64, you can get the fastest straight 32-bit Athlon and be nearly as well off. I'm going to hold off on the 64-bit CPU until I can take full advantage of ALL of its features. Either way, it's good to see 64-bit headed to the desktop market. Maybe this will succeed unlike the AlphaPC machines.