Microsoft mulling 128-bit versions of Win8, Win9

[Dark Nova Gamer]

The need for 64 bit processors was important to address the increasing RAM usage in modern home computers. We currently have no such problem the limitation is the size of the current modules or amount of RAM slots.

I think we should encourage staying ahead of things, rather then lagging behind (take Adobe for example, and 64-bit Flash for Windows ).

 

[sup3rsprt]

99% of Windows users still run 32-bit Windows because of developers lagging behind. Developers are lagging behind because 99% of Windows users still run 32-bit Windows.

There's a term for that, but I'm having a mental block right now..

 

[z3r010]

Dear god we aren't even fully switched to x64.

Speak for yourself.....I'm 5 years in.

 

[sup3rsprt]

Congrats 010

Now it's time for developers to get on board. I've still got perfectly functioning hardware that doesn't have 64-bit drivers (no, I'm not up for repurchasing new printers, TV capture cards, etcetera just for 64-bit support).

 

[Firestrider]

99% of Windows users still run 32-bit Windows because of developers lagging behind. Developers are lagging behind because 99% of Windows users still run 32-bit Windows.

There's a term for that, but I'm having a mental block right now..

I believe that is called a catch 22.

 

[mickey megabyte]

you sure it isn't catch-32?

 

[chuckr]

Let me question you all a question: "How many of you are going to turn down a chance to be the first owner of a 128 bit system, and also be the first on the beta list to test the new OS for a 128 bit system.

I know my name is going to be at the top (if I live that long).

FTW

I'd like to offer a counterpoint, but only because I'm like that, not because I'm not excited by the thought of bigger and better computers. (I totally agree with Lee, and with Antman's "FTW".)

I also agree with that. Not that I ever anticipate actually owning a 128-bit microprocessor...

As Clive Sinclair reportedly retorted when somebody asked him why he settled for the 8-bit Z80 processor in his ZX Spectrum (at a time when 16-bit architectures were becoming available), "because I couldn't find a 4-bit chip I really liked."

The outwardly facetious comment is in fact insightful.

Previously, the transition to greater "bittiness" was always forced upon us by simple mathematical exhaustion of the describable memory address range. The 16-bit [segment: offset] addressing scheme was designed to defeat the overly limiting 64KB flat address space. Even so, 1MB became insufficient within a few years.

I believe someone did say, "640 K is plenty enough for anybody", or similar.

When the first 80386 PC came out in the mid-80s, the 32-bit machine was capable of a flat 4GB address space. That was sufficient or adequate for around two decades. By the mid-90s, large databases were pushing the envelope, so as a stopgap Intel brought out 36-bit addressing and PAE for a grand total of 64GB. It wasn't uncommon for massive server systems to nudge against that limit by 2000 or a few years later.

I don't believe you're talking RAM here, but disk storage space, back then.
64 GB of physical RAM per CPU is still a very large number.
The Roadrunner petaflop machine only uses, per node,
16 GB for an IBM Cell/BE memory
16 GB for an AMD Opteron memory
and both are 64-bit microprocessors.

The 64-bit address space is 16 exabytes in size. However, Windows currently artificially limits itself to a mere fraction of that (though that will change in future versions). This time around, we are not even close to exhausting the address space yet, so the talk of double the bittiness is being driven by other factors.

The number of available general purpose registers, the way they are used, the efficiency of the calling convention... Currently, the potential of a new architecture is more exciting because of the chance to improve in those areas than because of the meaninglessly vast 128-bit address space. Even the 64-bit one we've got now is still almost entirely empty.

Indeed, but the 128 bit just doesn't describe "Address-space", but also "Data-width", and that's where the 128 is important.
The DW influences the "Instruction(s)-size" and the "Data-to-be-processed" accuracies.
AFAIK, the only "other'' processor that deals with 128 bits is the IBM "PowerXCell 8i",
but the 8 SPE units probably fetch in 64-bit chunks...
To me, it looks like one amazing architecture, which I've been looking into for a few days now...
One might find this interesting reading:

http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/resources/technology_cell_pdf_CellBrBandEngineWhitePaper.pdf

(Following pic indicates a Single-core only. It's a Dual-core chip.)

Architecturally, it appears (to me) to be similar to having both a CDC-7600 and a Cray XMP 4 on a single microchip,
8 'functional-units' (SPEs) per each of the dual cores:

1. 7600, 9 functional-units: CDC 7600s at Livermore
2. Cray, a vector-machine: Cray XMP

except that each of the 8 SPE 'functional-units' is not HW bound, but changeable via SW,
thus being anything you want them to be...

This appears to be IBM's "updated" (Dbl Prec Ft Pt) version of Antman's earlier posting:

It is not really news. Perhaps the bit about the soon to be fired blogger is news, but the tech development is nothing new.

10 years ago - (Sony) - Welcome to IEEE Xplore 2.0: A microprocessor with a 128-bit CPU, ten floating-point MAC's, fourfloating-point dividers, and an MPEG-2 decoder

I expect that none of this would be happening yet if Intel could achieve greater uptake of their IA-64 product.

The 'Itanium' is not particularly well thought of, by one of my favorite columnists:

How the Itanium Killed the Computer Industry - Columns by PC Magazine
.

 

[fakeasdf]

Dream on peeps, 128 bit won't go consumer in the next version of Windows. More than likely only server cpu's will be 128 bit and more than likely that's the only version of Windows that will be 128 bit.

 

[KazeNoKoe23]

Dream on peeps, 128 bit won't go consumer in the next version of Windows. More than likely only server cpu's will be 128 bit and more than likely that's the only version of Windows that will be 128 bit.

Then we'll have the same crowd that was so gung-ho on making Windows Server 2003 into a workstation go nuts over a 128-bit Server edition of Windows, trying to make that into a workstation.

 

[KriSFo7]

Bah. Just get those flash drives larger and cheaper, thats where the real good improvements are.

 

[fakeasdf]

I presume yer talking bout the SSD drives. And yes, they are the friggin bomb! I got my x25-M G2 this week and it's like night and day, I want to marry the drive.

 

[AlexRD]

You people keep saying like o my god, we barely moved to 64 bit yet, but hey, this is going to happen in windows 8 and 9. So we still have some time.
And i think that its already time for a 256 bit version :O

 

[Firestrider]

I don't see how this is going to happen as there are no mainstream CPUs that work on 128-bit integers and addresses. Sure there are 128-bit vector registers for SIMD instructions, but to be truly 128-bit they need data/address buses of that size.

 

[H2SO4]

That other "processors" discussion just now reminded me of my intention to respond to this post

I don't believe you're talking RAM here, but disk storage space, back then.
64 GB of physical RAM per CPU is still a very large number.

I was actually referring to RAM. By the early 2000s, the biggest 32-bit Windows servers running multiple instances of SQLServer (and employing its AWE capabilities) had started to run into the 64GB PAE limit. From memory, at one point Win2K3 had a bit of a problem in that it wouldn't even boot with 64GB present (there wasn't enough VM space for the sysPTEs necessary to describe all that RAM!), but once that was rectified the enterprise discovered that they could limp along with 32-bit for a while.

Even nowadays it's not at all uncommon to find monstrous 32-bit+PAE servers with 32GB or 64GB of RAM, quietly fulfilling some app server function where the app is either not yet certified for use on a 64-bit system, or the company is too cheap to purchase the updated version, and they're planning to run what they've got into the ground.

AFAIK, the only "other'' processor that deals with 128 bits is the IBM "PowerXCell 8i",
but the 8 SPE units probably fetch in 64-bit chunks...
To me, it looks like one amazing architecture, which I've been looking into for a few days now...
One might find this interesting reading:

http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/resources/technology_cell_pdf_CellBrBandEngineWhitePaper.pdf

Thanks. I'll have to do some light reading

The 'Itanium' is not particularly well thought of, by one of my favorite columnists:

How the Itanium Killed the Computer Industry - Columns by PC Magazine

Ah, John C. Dvorak. Even as a kid I used to leaf through my dad's "PC Mags" (those were the days!), and wonder why this man who seemed to know so much was sometimes controversial.

In this instance, I think he got it completely wrong. The Itanium didn't kill the computer industry - the Itanium was itself killed by the AMD64, which he doesn't even mention.

In it's finest hour, AMD realised that the Itanium was too advanced and too disconnected from the status quo, to the point where Intel had left itself open for a competitor to undermine their effort with an architecture that was arguably inferior, but cheaper and backwards-compatible. Enter the AMD64

I find the parallels between Intel's Itanium experience and what happened to IBM when they introduced the MCA to be very interesting. Both were superior products - which nobody wanted because they were all too heavily invested in the current "obsolete" standard.

 

[Hydrology]

Dream On

A minimum of 10 to 15 years before wee see anything like this. Only 2% of the present applications have been coded to used 64bit. It will be 5 to 7 more years before our existing software fully embraces 64 bit, muck less 128.

128 bit is just a gleam in the eye of Microsofts marketing department.

 

[AvatarOfTheShip]

OK I'm just putting my i7 in the bin now...

 

[chev65]

99 percent are still using 32 bit? I'm sorry but I'm just not even close to believing that one because it's simply untrue.

I did hear that Windows 8 will be 64 bit only which is much easier to believe.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

99 percent are still using 32 bit? I'm sorry but I'm just not even close to believing that one because it's simply untrue.

I did hear that Windows 8 will be 64 bit only which is much easier to believe.

"They" were saying the same about 7, right?

 

[AvatarOfTheShip]

The Itanium throws a long, dark shadow. Everyone wanted out from the x86 architecture/instruction set. They wanted a brave, pure, free new world, where a ground-up fusion of hard- and software would shine like that weird baby-sun thing in TellyTubbyLand. Then they realized they would have to replace all their software and soon, all over the land, the executions began. Mind you, I have a friend who worked with Itaniums and he said they have two modes: Warp Speed and All Stop. Absolutely nothing in between. when you're on the bus, you stay on the bus.

 

[Uber Philf]

That means new CPU for me if i go 128, and i just upgraded >_>