16, 32, 64 bit?

[Theinfamousone]

Can someone clarify what it means to be 16,32, or 64 bit computer? It sounds like dos stuff is 16 bit and Windows is 32 bit usually. What about sound? The new Audigy 2 is 24 bit audio. Is that a big deal? What's the difference?

[DainBramaged]

I don't profess to know alot about either, but here's my go.

A CPU processes bits, as everything in the computer world is essentially 0's and 1's, each digit is one bit. Typically these bits are arranged in 8's, with 8 bits being one byte. In terms of processing, a 64 bit processor can process 64 bits of data (8 bytes) at a time, as opposed to current processors which process at 32 bits (4 bytes) at a time. It also allows the processor to address larger quantities of data as there are more addresses available, 2^64 as opposed to 2^32.

Audio bits usually refer to the number of bits a DAC can process at one time. Higher is better.

Otherwise, can't really say much without researching the subject more.

[Krell]

The commonality is the number of bits that can be processed simultaneously, like in a lane, in width. Whats more efficient, a 2 lane road, or a 16 lane interstate?

In digital signal processing, micro controllers, digital to analog converters etc, the higher the number, the better.

The DAC 's in the new Blaster Audigy sound card is what give it the processing power onboard to render more detail in the sound as it converts it to analog.

In CD players, or home theatre equipment the same holds true.

http://www.analog.com/Analog_Root/si...5252D1,00.html

http://www.transtech-dsp.com/io/ics-115a.htm


In computing, the amount of data that can be sent back in forth on a data bus to a memory address by the processor also determines its effeciency.

"The motherboard in your computer has “highways” or “lanes of traffic” on which information travels. It helps to picture a highway going right through the middle of town with 16, 32, 64, or 128 lanes. The more lanes you have, the more traffic you can accommodate. Specifically:

A 16-bit motherboard has 16 lanes of traffic. We refer to these as really old computers.
32-bit motherboards have 32 lanes of traffic. We refer to these as microcomputers or personal computers.
64-bit motherboards have 64 lanes of traffic. We have commonly referred to these as mini-computers, such as the IBM AS/400, or Digital VAX system. But you will also find 64-bit computers in children’s video games such as Nintendo 64. Further, many file server class microcomputers today actually have 64-bit motherboards.
128-bit motherboards have 128 lanes of traffic. We commonly refer to computers with 128-bit motherboards as mainframe computers. "

Microprocessor History
A microprocessor -- also known as a CPU or central processing unit -- is a complete computation engine that is fabricated on a single chip. The first microprocessor was the Intel 4004, introduced in 1971. The 4004 was not very powerful -- all it could do was add and subtract, and it could only do that 4 bits at a time. But it was amazing that everything was on one chip. Prior to the 4004, engineers built computers either from collections of chips or from discrete components (transistors wired one at a time). The 4004 powered one of the first portable electronic calculators.
The first microprocessor to make it into a home computer was the Intel 8080, a complete 8-bit computer on one chip, introduced in 1974. The first microprocessor to make a real splash in the market was the Intel 8088, introduced in 1979 and incorporated into the IBM PC (which first appeared around 1982). If you are familiar with the PC market and its history, you know that the PC market moved from the 8088 to the 80286 to the 80386 to the 80486 to the Pentium to the Pentium II to the Pentium III to the Pentium 4. All of these microprocessors are made by Intel and all of them are improvements on the basic design of the 8088. The Pentium 4 can execute any piece of code that ran on the original 8088, but it does it about 5,000 times faster!


An O/S also has to be able to support these architectures.
A 64-bit operating system supports far more physical memory than a 32-bit operating system. For example, 32-bit Windows NT® supports 4 gigabytes of memory, while 64-bit Windows NT supports 16 terabytes of memory. The increased physical memory includes the following benefits for applications:

>Each application can support more users. All or part of each application must be replicated for each user, which requires additional memory.
>Each application has better performance. Increased physical memory allows more applications to run simultaneously and remain completely resident in the system's main memory. This reduces or eliminates the performance penalty of swapping pages to and from disk.
>Each application has more memory for data storage and manipulation. Databases can store more of their data in the physical memory of the system. Data access is faster because disk reads are not necessary.
>Applications can manipulate large amounts of data easily and more reliably. Video composition for motion picture work requires 64-bit Windows for this reason. Modeling for scientific and financial applications benefits greatly from memory-resident data structures that are not possible on 32-bit Windows®.

The benefits of 64-bit architecture relative to 32-bit aren't as obvious as those of 32-bit architecture relative to 16-bit. The first one that gets mentioned now is the limitation on physical memory. A 32-bit pointer can address 4GB of memory; a 64-bit pointer can address 16 gazillion Foofoobytes. Actually, whatever the limit is, it's going to be a long time before we have to worry about the limitation showing up in real systems. (Personally, I think limitations in semiconductor manufacturing processes will slow things down before this happens.) If you want an image of how large it is, first imagine the maximum 4,294,967,296 bytes in a 32-bit address space. Now imagine 4,294,967,296 32-bit address spaces; that's one 64-bit address space.


There will be backwards compatibility and interoperability to the next platform.

WOW64 is the x86 emulator that allows Win32-based applications to run on 64-bit Windows. It is intended to run 32-bit personal productivity applications needed by software developers and administrators. It is not intended to run 32-bit server applications.

WOW64 launches and runs 32-bit applications seamlessly. The system isolates 32-bit applications from 64-bit applications, including preventing file and registry collisions. Both console and GUI applications are supported, as are service applications. The system provides interoperability across the 32/64 boundary for scenarios such as cut and paste and COM. However, 32-bit processes cannot load 64-bit DLLs, and 64-bit processes cannot load 32-bit DLLs.



http://www.microsoft.com/WindowsXP/6...n/overview.asp

http://techupdate.zdnet.com/techupda...854505,00.html

http://www.wired.com/news/technology...,53998,00.html

http://www.accountingsoftwarenews.com/topics/32bit.htm

http://computer.howstuffworks.com/microprocessor1.htm

[metale]

That means:


Super Mario bross.
Mario World and
Mario 3d


lol!

[Induna]

Good post there Krell. I had a vague idea what it all meant but you and Dain have explained it in a clear manner.

The new AMD chips are going to be 64-bit. Codename Clawhammer and Sledgehammer. I think they're testing them out on server motherboards before they move into the home PC market.

Was supposed to have been scheduled for last September, with the first Clawhammer at 3.4Ghz.

[isus]

good explanation, krell

[Krell]

Thx guys, as much as I hate full page posts, this was about as short as I could make it and really answer, altho I liked the answer by DainBramaged, I just didnt see it till I was finished.


But you just wait till I make my donut post, its gonna be the mother of all posts, yes siree.

[Theinfamousone]

Thanks a lot Krell.

K, next question, what is the difference between an x86 processor and an x11 processor like for Macs I guess?

You know on Mission Impossible, the hacker guy asks for a 686 prototype, what's that about? Is that faster than my P4? LOL.

[nasrules]

What's this I hear about a new-fangled system that allows 'puters to make everything out of 0-9 instead of just two-digit binary?

[isus]

Originally posted by Theinfamousone
Thanks a lot Krell.

K, next question, what is the difference between an x86 processor and an x11 processor like for Macs I guess?

the instruction set. the power. x86 is good for some things, g4's are better at others.

i dunno how fast p4's or amd xp's can do flops, but i know that the fastest mac's can handle nearly 10 gigaflops per second. that's a helluva lot of long division.

btw, if you ever see the 'national security risk' apple t-shirt, the velocity engine was the reason. it was the first cpu that could do 1 gigaflop, and the gov't banned exports on it i believe.

anywho, wait for the ppc970 and it's velocity engine... redesigned mobo, etc... it'll be great ;)

but the x86 is good. it's clock speed is higher, and has seen more competition lately. ibm vs. motorola is not competition to me. amd vs. intel is.

as far as i know, a 686 is a p3, p4, or equivalent amd. not too sure however.

[Krell]

Its an Intel architecture designate for older processors.


http://www.cyberwalker.net/columns/jun96/060696.html

http://users.erols.com/chare/586.htm


forward thinking scientist?
http://newton.dep.anl.gov/newton/ask...ompsci/CS2.HTM

[DainBramaged]

686 is a P4 with SSE2 optimizations. A P-III is a 586. Though I could be wrong, this is just from extrapolating from linux distro information.

[Theinfamousone]

Alright, what is a math co/ processor? How about SSE, SSE2, 3DNow, MMX, Floating Point?

[Krell]

Originally posted by Theinfamousone
Alright, what is a math co/ processor? How about SSE, SSE2, 3DNow, MMX, Floating Point?

Do some research on benchmarking, and the individual instruction sets.

[DainBramaged]

Instruction sets typically just give the processor a little added functionality in a certain area--these days, multimedia or the handling of 3D graphics. Floating point is simply a type of math, or more specifically, a number that has certain characteristics. Do some research to find out more.