The No Nonsense "When should I upgrade to 64 Bit" Post

[offie]

Hi there

Ok, there are loads of posts about "should i upgrade to 64 bit?" well... i'd love to hear your comments:

Firstly: The software is very scarce atm, as is the driver support, and most programs are still 32bit, so it wouldnt be value for money as yet, cause once proper 64bit support comes out, for all programs, then the hardware would have changed and improved, but you'd be stuck with something you bought a few months back.

Second thing: Are they changing the Socket again? what are they again? 754 and 939? Arent they going to come out with another socket soon? And if so, any info on it at all?

Thirdly: New core coming out for the AMD 64 line? Again, info would be appreaciated..

Fourthly: Software support.. yes i know its been mentioned above... but when exactly is a "Switch" expected to be seen, where developers stop developing mainly for 32 bit and start on the hardcore meat of the 64 bit processor?

Cheers

Offie

[Áedán]

My take on it:

1) Current 64bit high performance processors run 32bit code quite happily. Socket A is already going away, so it'll be Sempron or 64bit on the AMD side. Intel may well follow suit.
2) No idea. Socket 939 and 940 appear to be the most dominant ones now. 939 for desktops/workstations and 940 for servers.
3) AMD are supposed to have dual core Athlon 64 processors. Current rumours are that upgrading is a BIOS upgrade and a simple processor replacement. In practice, wait and see.
4) Depends what software you want to use. Most applications will not receive much (if any) of a speed boost from going 64bit. Only applications that need to work with more than 4GB of virtual memory will really benefit. If you're talking general applications, then you'll be waiting years. How long did the change from Windows 3.1 to Windows 95 actually take? (hint: I still occasionally see 16bit apps)

[Allan]

A64's are a bit faster in many 32bit apps because of the integrated memory controller. I can feel the difference between my A64 and my Barton, no kidding.

I'm only using socket 754 though - which is still good value for your money, but socket 939 is definately a bit better.

[offie]

Question: Why the 3 sockets for the 64 bit platforms? 754... 839 and 840..? And how do they differ?

offie

[Áedán]

754 only supports single channel memory.
939 supports dual channel.
940 is the server version, and supports dual channel, but requires registered RAM if I remember correctly.

[offie]

Sounds like a good explanation. Can this be made a sticky at all as alot of people are asking the same questions and most have been made in this post, and answered..?

Cheers

offie

[GrahamGarside]

Originally socket 940 was released with the opteron processor, designed for workstation and server applications, and supporting multiprocessor setups. It had dual channel memory and only supported registered dimms.
AMD then released socket 754 for consumers, supporting regular memory and with only a single channel, this platfrm is now only going to be supported with semprons, which remove the 64bit extensions, and reduce the cache to 128/256kb, 64bit extensions will probablt be added once intel adds EMT64 to the celeron range. The Athlon FX was originally released for socket 940 and was the only consumer application of this platform.
Socket 939 was released to converge the 2 platforms for consumer use, adding dual channel memory and with support for a 1ghz Hyper Transport bus, and no longer needing registered dimms