Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[sgolds]

wbmw, yes I agree that the consumer market doesn't need 64-bits. However, your conclusions do not follow from this correct assessment of need:

1. Microsoft very much wants to be the premier server company, and that does not happen without a compelling 64-bit story. They do not want to take risk on only Itanium, just to see Linux steal the market from them.

2. With Apple, AMD and Microsoft pushing 64-bit, the consumer will want it whether they need it or not. Now, Apple may not be very good at building market share, but they are very good at anticipating what people will demand in their PCs. If Macintosh has it then users of x86 PCs will want it - that is the lesson of the last 20 years of consumer PC history.

Software makers will oblige & fill hardware, as usual. A year from now the best computer games will be disk-bound on 32-bit PCs and every kid will want a 64-bit solution.

P.S.: I saw your answer to YB. The issue isn't 64-bit graphics, the issue is large DRAM memory to feed data quickly into that 64-bit graphics. Perhaps he was sloppy in his terms, referring to 64-bit rendering, but that is not the issue.


P.P.S: I just saw YB's answer. Double-precision 64-bit (meaning 128-bit) floating point. Yet another advantage!