The Windows Server division team is blogging on the wonders of x64: visit their blogs here: http://blogs.msdn.com/windowsserver .

We saw that both Itanium and x64 processors have a way of making their differences from 32-bit x86 processors invisible to 32-bit x86 code, although we noted that x64’s do so in a way that is a lot more efficient than Itaniums. However, when the 32-bit x86 code is running on a 64-bit operating system...

The Alienware Athlon 64 FX-55 was delivered last week. It's in an enormous black box that stands higher than my dining table, as you can see below. Looking at it makes me feel like one of the monkeys from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

A comment from Christopher reminded me to mention this: today, the 64-bit version of Windows are not sold retail, and that will continue to be the case for the 64-bit versions that ship as part of the Windows Server 2003 SP1 release. It will be sold to hardware manufacturers, and available via MSDN Professional...

Concerning operating systems, it is crucial to remember that Itaniums can only run operating systems compiled for the EPIC instruction set, whereas x64 processors will run operating systems compiled for them or for x86 processors. For Itaniums, Microsoft has had Itanium versions of Windows XP Professional...

At this point, we have established that the 64-bit PC computing world is really very different from 32-bit PC computing. It’s not just a matter of the processors being faster. Whereas with 32-bit PCs, you could count on having an x86 instruction set at the bottom, that’s not the case with 64-bit PCs...

Folks who read my posts, and I am always very surprised to find that there are some, will know that unlike the majority of people who maintain blogs mostly devoted to technical topics, I never presume that anyone is interested in my personal life. Other readers of William Gibson's writings may be inclined...

What does the 64-bit hardware landscape look like today, 18 months after AMD introduced the first x86 processor? On September 8 th , at the Intel Developer Forum, Abhi Talkwalkar, general manager of Intel’s Enterprise Platform Group acknowledged that Itanium sales are not meeting the “aggressive” levels...

So, we find that the Itanium processor and the x64 Opteron processor are very different. They both incorporate ingenious ideas for drastically increasing the performance of the processor that go far beyond just making them 64-bit capable. Compared purely as 64-bit processors, the Itanium’s massive floating...

The first x64 processor was the AMD Opteron. The Opteron x64 processor has at least three very important features. First, it is a 64-bit processor. Remember that we said that instructions to a 64-bit processor can refer to memory addresses using 64-bit binary numbers? Well, those addresses are entered...

There are two quite different species of 64-bit PC: the Itanium and the x64. The Itanium species first appeared in 2001, whereas the x64 species first appeared in April of last year. What is the difference between the two species? Well, to understand that, we need to start with the concept of the instruction...

What is a 64-bit processor, exactly? Well, when an instruction is sent to a processor, it will often refer to one or more locations in memory that contain data that the processor is to manipulate. Those locations are expressed as binary numbers. On a 32-bit processor, the numbers can be up to 32-bits...

64-bit computing is here today. Quite literally: this is a 64-bit laptop, running a 64-bit operating system. And if you want to buy a 64-bit system, well, it’s dead easy: go to www.AlienWare.com , and order yourself a rig for home or for the office, and choose from among various 64-bit processors you...