jmke

MICROSOFT HAS released the final version of Windows XP 64 to manufacturing, meaning that those with machines that have 64-32 bit processors in from AMD and latterly Intel can now see what the extra addressing brings to the party.
No doubt people can also look forward to future service pack releases from Microsoft, but we mustn't be too churlish about this, even though the OS is long delayed. Only the most absurdly cynical would suggest that it's been delayed because Intel was hurriedly racing to catch up and make its chips similar enough to AMD64 processors to run the OS.

Despite this, Microsoft has plumped for the Opteron and already uses the AMD processor to run some of its own inhouse systems. Microsoft was always a big fan of the Alpha chip.

Both Intel and AMD believe that 64-32 processors are the way to go, although Chipzilla was slow to convert to the idea. It has accomplished its volte face by putting its Itanium processor into a niche and hopes that it will topple RISC chips from the enterprise space.

But, and let's face this head on, the Itanium was originally supposed to be a microprocessor that would displace the IA32 architecture and end up on the desktop. Instead, 10 years after its inception, the Itanium microprocessor is now supposed to be the Big Tin killer. The gold download is available to MSDN subscribers

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=22246

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