Re: Minutes from Feb 21 LSE Call

Magnus Danielson
2003-02-23T11:12:58Z

From: "Martin J. Bligh" <mbligh@aracnet.com>
Subject: Re: Minutes from Feb 21 LSE Call
Date: Sat, 22 Feb 2003 16:50:36 -0800

> > On Sat, Feb 22, 2003 at 03:38:10AM -0500, Jeff Garzik wrote:
> >> ia32 big iron. sigh. I think that's so unfortunately in a number
> >> of ways, but the main reason, of course, is that highmem is evil :)
>
> One phrase ... "price:performance ratio". That's all it's about.
> The only thing that will kill 32-bit big iron is the availability of
> cheap 64 bit chips. It's a free-market economy.
>
> It's ugly to program, but it's cheap, and it works.

Not all heavy-duty problems die for 64 bit, but fit nicely into 32 bit.
There is however different 32-bit architectures for which it fit more or less
nicely into. SIMD may or may not give the boost just as 64 bit in itself.
This is just like clustering vs. SMP, it depends on the application.

Cheers,
Magnus