Windows 7 - Next Generation OS - Multi Processor or 128 bit

Hi all

As you increase the number of processors the performance improvement diminishes compared with the expected result -- for instance a system with 8 processors won't perform 8 times faster than a system with one processor due to the ovehead of managing the extra complexity of the interaction of all the processors. (Note the system will still be FAST of course !!).

Now wouldn't it be better to design say 128 and 256 bit architectures in the OS so you could still run many tasks concurrently but without the overhead of the multi processor environment - or at least have far less processors in the MP environment.

Any hardware gurus here -- it was rumoured a while back that Windows 8 would have some 128 bit possibility -- I don't think there are any commercially available chips yet but thats only a matter of time.

Cheers
jimbo

Microsoft has denied Windows 8 will be 128 capable. That bet will be on Windows 9. Right now, Intel and AMD I think are working on stable 128 bit chips, but I doubt that will come to the market any time soon.

Speaking of Windows 8, it will be the last 32 bit capable operating system from Microsoft.

Even if one was to go to 128 or 256 bit you still would not be able to run concurrent tasks on a single processor core. One thread/process per processor core at a time. Regardless of bit architectures. The amount of overhead of having multiple processors cores in pretty much a non-issue.

The amount of processor cores will continue to increase, not diminish. Even as the about of bits that are supported increase so will the amount of cores.

Hi,
I read something a while back that said Windows 8 would be 64bit only..32bit was supposedly dead nd buried with Windows 7...something has changed?

Microsoft never said anything about not having a 32 bit version. Furthermore, their are currently no 64-bit ARM processors in any major devices. The consumer market is also not fully 64 bit unlike the server market which can drop the 32 bit version a lot easier.