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Why is Intel saying 64-bit is not for desktops?
Have we been here before?
By Peter Friedman, 22nd October 2003
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You've all got such short memories.
Remember the chips which Intel gave us before the Pentium? It was in the days before anyone talked about Web Servers. Those were the days of the good old 386 and 486 chips. Oh my, did they seem awesome compared to what we had (PCs based on the 286 and the 'original' 8088) when they first came out. In those days, instead of talking about servers, we talked about 'power users'.
When a new chip was first demonstrated by Intel, it was hideously expensive, ten or twenty times the price of the 'previous' (i.e., 'current') model.
(PRWEB) October 23 2003--
So in order to avoid triggering fears that the chip manufacturer was about to make the next generation of PCs unaffordably expensive, or that they had any intention of phasing out the current chip, they cleverly positioned the new chip 'off the radar screen' of the typical PC buyer.
'These new chips will only be of interest to power users' was the launch day mantra.
Why was the next generation chip so expensive?
Usually because production volumes and 'yield' (number of good chips from a production batch) had not yet reached anywhere near those of the current chip, so the unit costs of manufacture for the new chip were still much higher than they were for the current one.
Also, if the manufacturer was crazy enough to put the new chip on the market at a (subsidised) price which was close enough to the current one, it would suddenly discourage large numbers of people from buying the current (profitable) one.
None of this would make anyone but Intel's competitors very happy.
So Intel's job, when they make a brand new generation available, is:
| | - Let the public know that their new chip is 'the future'
- Let them know that it mustn't affect their buying decisions for anything but computers which are so powerful and expensive that the chip price won't be an issue
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These considerations produce a single phrase:
'It's not for desktop PCs'
The 64 bit chip is getting exactly the same treatment as the 32 bit chip got when PCs were 16 bit.
What does this mean?
The 64 bit chip will be for desktops, but only once:
| | - It has become cheaper to build
- Intel feels the Pentium can be replaced with impunity
- AMD market share increases have put Intel under enough pressure to accelerate their 64 bit rollout
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What will drive 64 bit chips for desktops?
| | - 64 bit desktop PCs costing not much more than Pentium desktops
- Reviews which say that 32 bit software runs faster on a 64 bit PC
- Software specially written for 64 bit which outperforms any 32 bit equivalent
- 64 bit versions of existing software that outperform current 32 bit versions
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What will make these things happen?
| | - Availability of a 64 bit desktop version of Windows which looks like it is not too far from its final form
- Massive performance increases over 32 bit on at least some applications
- Availability of 64 bit development tools which allow 'converting' 32 bit applications to 64 bit to produce at least some serious performance gains relatively painlessly
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You can see that the 64 bit rollout timescale is just as much in the hands of Intel and Microsoft as it is in those of the PC buyer, which is why '64 bit is not for desktops' is currently perfectly true, but only a temporary 'factoid'.
It will only be true while Intel, Microsoft and the market want it to be true, and that may be for quite a while yet.
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Peter Friedman
peter@comgen.co.uk
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