64 Bit Processors

The advent of 64 bit processors for servers and high end PCs is getting nearer following a recent announcement by Intel. 64 bit processors are not exactly new but until now they have tended to appear only in very expensive hardware and for this reason were not exactly common place in server farms. This however is set to change but what does it mean?

Clearly 64 bit is double the power of a 32 bit processor. Right? Well not exactly. 64 bit is not actually a direct measure of "power" rather it relates to the amount of data that can be processed. The implications are enormous. Large web sites have to handle a vast number of hits and need to quickly search huge databases to provide customers with the required information. To do this effectively the site needs to keep as much data in RAM as possible and herein lies the problem. A 32 bit processor can only address 4 Gig of RAM. Actually 4 Gigs is impressive in itself but falls a long way short of the needs of a large data base.

So what can a 64 bit processor do, 8 Gigs perhaps? Not even close. It is all to do with binary arithmetic and the answer believe it or not is 16 Tera bytes. Now that is a lot of information.

The web superhighway is not just affected by bandwidth but by server response time. The new era of commonplace 64 bit processors should provide a big boost to speed.



	The Power of 64 Bit Processors The advent of 64 bit processors for servers and high end PCs is getting nearer following a recent announcement by Intel. 64 bit processors are not exactly new but until now they have tended to appear only in very expensive hardware and for this reason were not exactly common place in server farms. This however is set to change but what does it mean? Clearly 64 bit is double the power of a 32 bit processor. Right? Well not exactly. 64 bit is not actually a direct measure of "power" rather it relates to the amount of data that can be processed. The implications are enormous. Large web sites have to handle a vast number of hits and need to quickly search huge databases to provide customers with the required information. To do this effectively the site needs to keep as much data in RAM as possible and herein lies the problem. A 32 bit processor can only address 4 Gig of RAM. Actually 4 Gigs is impressive in itself but falls a long way short of the needs of a large data base. So what can a 64 bit processor do, 8 Gigs perhaps? Not even close. It is all to do with binary arithmetic and the answer believe it or not is 16 Tera bytes. Now that is a lot of information. The web superhighway is not just affected by bandwidth but by server response time. The new era of commonplace 64 bit processors should provide a big boost to speed.