Windows 8 To Be 128 Bit?
Windows 7 when it launched on October 22nd will include versions for both 32 bit and 64 bit users. It’s successor Windows 8 expected in 2011 was expected to only come in a 64 bit version, because Windows Server 2008 R2 was released in 64 bit form only and the next Windows OS was expected to follow suit.
However it is now believed that Windows 8 might ship in 64bit AND 128 bit versions, based on the linkedin profile of Microsoft employee Robert Morgan:
Working in high security department for research and development involving strategic planning for medium and longterm projects. Research & Development projects including 128bit architecture compatibility with the Windows 8 kernel and Windows 9 project plan. Forming relationships with major partners: Intel, AMD, HP, and IBM.
Robert Morgan is working to get IA-128 working backwards with full binary compatibility on the existing IA-64 instructions in the hardware simulation to work for Windows 8 and definitely Windows 9.
Whether or not Windows 8 will support 128bit remains to be seen, but at this stage Microsoft are at least considering it. I’m not sure how likely this will be though; 64 bit adoption is still low and although this will increase by 2011 I just fear that adding 128bit to Windows 8 will create a poor customer experience like Vista 64 bit, where driver availability was poor.
Eight Forums have manged to track down Robert via linkedin and they claim that he’s agreed to give them an interview and he’s letting their readers ask questions. Questions have to be submitted by October 11th. If he really has agreed to do the interview, I’d be amazed if he still had a job at Microsoft on October 12th as news on Windows 8 is clearly embargoed at the moment.
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Don't be so sure, netbooks are huge sellers at the moment and only the dual core ones are 64bit, the older N270's are only single core 32bit.
Err, just out of curiosity, why? The upper memory limit on a 64 bit architecture is 16 exabytes. Although, at least on AMD64 chips the physical memory address limit and virtual address space are 52 bits and 48 bits respectively. That's 4 petabytes and 256 petabytes each. I don't currently see any system in the next 10 years utilizing the full 16 exabytes. So I guess the question is, will it deliver better performance? Or will it just lend itself to another difficult transition for business and home users and the companies that have to write new drivers for the hardware? 64 bit archs have been around a long time now, but Vista was the first widespread 64 bit Windows, and that OS has only been with us a little over two years. Give it some time before making the jump. 64 bit adoption is still not where it should be to make that switch, and tons of users are still stuck on 32 bit. I think it would be best to hold off on this one.
I think and hope that people are moving onto 64bit when they upgrade to Windows 7, yes I would say 4gb+ machines are a good idea as 64bit OS's use abit more memory than 32bit. Have you seen Dell's budget PC's and Laptops recently? even alot of them are coming pre installed with 64bit W7. I personally use W7 Pro 64bit on both my laptop and PC, really fast with WMP12 x64 and CoreAVC x64 codec. PhotoShop CS4 x64 and Office 2010 x64 is very smooth and fast as well.
As I said above, 64/128bit OS's for Windows 8 would be fine, however I kind of hope its 64bit only, just so we can get more apps x64, such as flash (which will be followed by more mainstream use of x64 browsers).
If you can go 64bit, you should (unless your still on XP, don't go x64 haha).
Hm. I bought a 32 bit pc just over 2 years ago i think. And i do know a lot of people who still have x32 architecture, so it wouldn't be that smart to go x64 only (or even x128) , they should do the same as with W7, x32 and x64.
Hm. I bought a 32 bit pc just over 2 years ago i think. And i do know a lot of people who still have x32 architecture, so it wouldn't be that smart to go x64 only (or even x128) , they should do the same as with W7, x32 and x64.