The Hindu : Booting desktops into 64-bit era

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Monday, Sep 29, 2003

Business

Business

Booting desktops into 64-bit era

By Anand Parthasarathy

AMD's Athlon 64 chip

Washington Sept. 28. Advanced Micro Devices — the `other' PC chip maker — best known as the guys who cloned every chip that market leader Intel made, only cheaper have finally surged ahead in the processor race. The recent launch of the Athlon 64-bit chip family enables users of the Windows or Linux desktop or notebook personal computer to leave the 32-bit era behind them and move on to the next generation of 64-bit computing.

While Intel introduced its own 64-bit chip Itanium two years ago, it was not meant for the mass consumer desktop but rather for high-end servers. And while Apple also went 64-bit last month, with its PowerMac G5 desktop, its chip is not compatible with the Windows-Intel or Wintel desktop that 9 out of 10 PC users worldwide, patronise.

The new AMD 64-chip family consists of a standard 64-bit Athlon 3200+ for desktop; an Athlon 3000+ for notebook and a beefed up Athlon 64 FX-51 which runs slightly faster at 2.2 GHz for professional-consumers or "prosumers" — gaming freaks, game designers and graphics fans.

In one respect, the new Athlon differs from the Intel Itanium: In a canny move AMD has made it `backward compatible' — that means all existing applications written for today's 32-bit chips, including the Pentium 4 or the earlier Athlon versions will smoothly run. Across the U.S., computer marts and some supermarket chains are displaying the first PCs based on the 64-bit Athlon, courtesy HP, Packard Bell, Fujitsu and other computer players. In India, HCL seems to be first off the block with an Athlon 64-based PC but Wipro and Zenith will be on the shelves too.

What 64-bit computing means

In doubling the number of digital chunks or bits of data that a chip can handle at any time from 32 to 64, computers will also sharply increase the amount of main memory that PC can usefully deploy. While today's average PC comes with 128, 256 or 512 megabytes of random access memory (RAM), the new 64-bit computers will, in practice, easily gobble up 1-5 Gigabytes of memory — that's almost a 1000-fold increase.

So what's in it for you and me — the average home or small office PC owner? If you're merely into word processing and emailing — possible it's no big deal. But if, as is likely, we are soon offered a host of broadband `infotainment' content courtesy all those coloured fibre optic cables that Reliance, Bharti, Dishnet and the like have been laying in the ground India-wide, then a PC with a 64-bit Athlon under the hood will enable such broadband content to display movies, smoothly without jitter. No wonder, in its efforts to push their new chips AMD claims to inaugurate the "Era of Cinematic Computing". It has also succeeded in motivating leading makers of graphic cards and mother boards like Nvidia and Asus to come up with new products specifically tailored for 64-bit number crunching. Microsoft has also saluted the AMD initiative by launching a beta or prototype version of its Windows XP operating system for 64-bit machines. The standard notebook or desktop Athlon 64 processor is expected to cost just over $ 400. Convert that into rupees and it is almost what one would pay for an entry level PC in India today. So will the consumers queue up? May be not at these prices — unless they are looking for a high-end digital multimedia experience. But analysts sizing up the new chips suggest that a key inflection point in the PC's progress has been reached and it is only a matter of time before we are all booted, willingly or otherwise into the new 64-bit era.

It is less clear how the notebook market will respond to the world's first 64-bit option. Traditionally, portable computers have always been one step behind the desktop in speed and power. By simultaneously launching almost identical chips for both sectors, AMD has in a sense broken the mould.

Meanwhile, what almost every other American newspaper, with that blinding flash of originality is calling the "$ 64,000 question" is this: How soon will Intel announce its own 64-bit desktop chip? Mind you, Intel's own coyness notwithstanding, no one is saying "if", but only "when".

Printer friendly page
Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Business

News Update

Stories in this Section

Unlocking the economy's potential

After Cancun, it is China's forex policy

Booting desktops into 64-bit era

Network access from a DOS PC

Massive FII buying buoys bourses

Combating global disputes

Estimate of cost of construction: The fallout of SC decision