Does 32-Bit Have A Future?

by Rich Menga on Apr 15, 2009 | 13 comments

Microsoft Office will have a 64-bit edition for version 2010. This is a big deal because that’s Microsoft flagship product. More on that in a moment.

At this point in the desktop computing world, we’ve easily reached the limits of what 32-bit processing can do. No matter what OS you’re running, there really isn’t any more we can squeeze out of it. In the past it was CPU clock speeds that people wanted. We have that now. Then it was how many cores we can stuff into a CPU. We’ve got that too (and more are coming). The only bottleneck left is the 4GB RAM limitation of the 32-bit architecture. And the only way to rid that is to go 64-bit.

Why is the industry hanging on to 32-bit? Why do large PC makers continue to promote and sell 32-bit systems when 64-bit is just as affordable?

It’s because of the lack of native 64-bit applications.

Being that Microsoft will have a native 64-bit edition of MS Office, this now gives people a reason to go 64-bit – but it’s not like others haven’t tried. A good example is the game Half-Life 2 from Valve. That’s had a 64-bit edition since 2005(!), but even that couldn’t sway gamers over to 64-bit, and those people are some of the most diehard bleeding-edge PC hardware geeks you’ll find.

Will Microsoft lead the charge into the 64-bit world? They might. It may be the killer app that finally puts 32-bit to rest, both in enterprise and in the home.

However, there are two factors in play here that may keep 32-bit around for a while yet.

Future OSes will be smaller and faster

OS-makers have realized that there’s too much bloat. This counts for Windows and Linux.

Windows 7 will be decidedly slimmer compared to Vista. Vista in its present state isn’t just fat. It’s obese.

A good portion of the Linux community is screaming to tone down the sizes of the distros, citing that any distro over a CD’s size (roughly 700MB) is a waste of material. And they’re right. You may notice that DVD-sized distros don’t command nearly as much attention as the CD-sized and smaller ones do.

Smaller, faster OSes mean there isn’t a legitimate need for 64-bit. Instead, 32-bit will work fine if the OS is "tuned" properly to suit so it doesn’t require gobs and gobs of RAM.

The internet is the killer app

The internet itself is probably the "app" you use most.

Ask yourself: What app do you use more than your web browser?

The internet if treated as an app does not require any advantage 64-bit would bring. Whether you have 2GB of RAM now with a 32-bit system or 8GB with a 64-bit setup, the internet still runs the same.

What’s your say?

Will the fact MS Office will have 64-bit finally start to phase out 32-bit systems?

Is 64-bit even needed when the internet is what we use most?

Should the question be rephrased, Does 64-bit have a future?

Let us know in the comments.

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William Herzing
Almost all new servers sold within the last two years from AMD or Intel will have x64 capability. I believe they have already showed us the future?!
Doctor Gonzo
I think 32-bit processing is on the way out, for a couple of reasons.
First, although OSes may be getting smaller, that doesn’t mean the need for more RAM is getting smaller too. All of those cores means that people want to be multitasking, and even if the OS gets smaller, there will be plenty of other software bloat to go around.
Second, while 32 bits is more than enough for most of the internet, there is a clear advantage for 64-bit computing: handling encryption. Encryption algorithms require large numbers, more than 32 bits can handle much of the time. You may not spend a lot of time on SSL websites, but it does make a difference.
I’ve been running Windows XP x64 edition for over three years now, and I’m glad I have. Even if I don’t have many 64-bit programs at the moment.
Greg
Yay for Microsoft.
marc
On my XP x64 box I’m running Diskeeper x64, IE7 x64, 7-Zip x64, Photoshop CS4 x64, Peer Guardian2 x64, FullShot 9 x64, TeraCopy x64 and Comodo Internet Security x64. I’m giving Comodo the boot, though, in favor of ESET Smart Security x64.
In addition to those, I run well over a hundred x86 applications. The two 32-bit apps I’ve encountered that wouldn’t install on this machine were so inconsequential I can’t even remember what they were.
I’m dating myself, but I do remember the debates over whether or not 256 MB RAM was too much memory. This is an extension of that.
It’s a given that as software evolves it requires more memory. The more memory you have, the more software you can run at one time. A multi-core x64 processor and 8 GB RAM is blazingly fast for multitasking, and has a very, very clear advantage over 32-bit, which can’t even address a full 4 GB RAM.
If you earn your living on a computer, and need to multitask several RAM-hogging apps at once while being as productive as possible, there’s no question that 64-bit is the way to go.
Steve
The primary reason I didn’t upgrade recently to 64 bit was Office had reported problems … this is good news and I think will entice others to develop applications for 64 bit.
http://none David M
Does a word processing application like MS Word even need to be 64 bit? I never found Word to be slow even when I was using a 80386 CPU to run it.
I cant imagine people standing in line to buy a new 64 bit computer the day Microsoft releases a new 64 bit office suite.
The only time most people seem to upgrade is when there is software out there that they want that their old computer cannot run. I’m not talking about computer geeks who like to upgrade because to them upgrading is fun and great entertainment. I mean real folks who use their computers to run business applications because they have a business to run. I know of a few businesses that run XP 32 because it works for them. To them it makes no sense to upgrade and possibly screw everything up. There is nothing worth upgrading to that would make their business more efficient or profitable either.
I think 32 bit is going to be here for a long time despite what the geeks and the computer software corporations want everybody else to upgrade to.
http://none David M
If you want people to upgrade then provide something that is significantly better…not just marginally better, which seems to be the case over the last few generations of operating systems.
marc
If you’re like a lot of people and use your computer for word processing, web surfing and email, 64-bit is not going to benefit you. If, however, you multi-task with a number of high memory use applications running all at once, and don’t want to wait around for things to happen, then there is great benefit to 64-bit.
A 32-bit processor and O/S can address 3.3 GB of memory. That’s pretty limited, especially when you’re running a RAM-intensive O/S like Vista, and a lot of others apps simultaneously. Lack of memory is what slows things down.
Over time, computers will need the ability to address more memory, since new applications and operating systems will require it. Vista, for example, needs 2 GB RAM to be as fast as an XP box with 1 GB RAM.
A 64-bit processor and O/S can address 64 GB of memory, although the hardware for that is not yet available. You can run 16 GB RAM with hardware available today. Mobos are available that are designed to support much more memory than that.
A quad-core x64 machine with 8 GB RAM is phenomenally fast. You can run a dozen apps simultaneously without slowing it down.
For people doing video editing, or graphics and web design, a 64-bit machine with lots of memory will allow them to be more productive, because the machine will respond much faster under multitask conditions than a 32-bit machine will.
That’s the benefit.
http://www.darknet-fusion.co.cc Vertimyst
For 64-bit to go mainstream, I think hardware manufacturers need to enforce it, not just provide it as an option. Even if software developers provide 64-bit software, without forcing people to use 64-bit hardware, many will just stick to 32-bit – the majority of these people being the everyday users that simply browse, surf, check email, etc.
As has been said, the only people who will upgrade are the ones who need 64-bit, and those are usually the people who write the 64-bit software. Thus, a catch-22 – people who use 64-bit software are the ones who write it on 64-bit hardware. Everyone else will continue to use 32-bit.
Long story short, if manufacturers like Dell, HP, and others built their computers (I’m talking pre-built, not just the parts people which usually only appeal to gamers and the like, i.e, the ones who are already 64-bit) using only 64-bit hardware, only then would 64-bit become the future. Only then.

marc
There are already a lot of 64-bit machines out there, straight from the OEMs.
I extolled the virtues of 64-bit memory addressing to a friend who remembered some of what I said and bought a Dell laptop with 4 GB RAM. It also came with 64-bit hardware without him specifying it. He ordered Vista Business and because he wasn’t specific beyond that, wound up with 32-bit Vista Business whereas 64-bit is available.
I’ve converted HP and Compaq machines that came with 64-bit hardware and 32-bit Vista to XP x64. HP will even direct you to XP drivers for their machines if you know where to look for the info. In some cases, though, the drivers are 32-bit so you have to look a little further.
The 64-bit hardware is here. The problem is getting the manufacturers to include the 64-bit O/S.

http://www.darknet-fusion.co.cc Vertimyst
Exactly – there’s a choice. Your friend had to be specific even though he had purchased 64-bit-capable hardware.
Therefore, so long as there’s a choice, most people will likely end up buying 32-bit, since they likely won’t know/won’t care about 64-bit. So it’s as I said before – in order for 64-bit to have a solid future (not just alongside 32 as it is now), it has to utterly and completely, /forcefully replace/ the competition (32-bit).

Jeremy
Personally i think that 32 bit is dead. You can barely doing anything with it, and you can barely upgrade it. 64bit is now the way to go because you can do alot more with it and i do mean alot more. Personally i am with everyone else here. I wish someone would enforce the sale of 64bit pcs and get rid of 32bit pcs.
This is because 32bit os can’t handle todays new technology. Its dead and lets just move on!!
Jonnyboy
Of course it will eventually go 64-bit. Just as it went 8-bit, 16bit etc.
In the past we didn’t expect to have internet,email,photo,video, play DVDs, and almost life like 3d graphics ,from a computer in the 80′s. They were just complex calculators for doing accounts and programming and simple games. Now they can do a lot more than anyone expected. (Remember in 1980 DVD wasn’t even a concept!!)
The same will be true in the future, they will be able to do way more powerful things than they can now that we cannot even hope to imagine.
Here are some ideas
* Google cosmos – entire mapping of the entire cosmos of the known universe zoomable down to atomic level in real time (storable on a pen drive of course!)
* Brain dumps – Dump the entire contents of your cerebral matter for back-up purposes.
* 3D Hard light holograms – create any object in 3D and have it exist as a real object in the real world only it is composed of light and needs batteries. (AKA ‘Rimmer’ from red dwarf!)
* Future predictions – can compose every variable known to man to predict the likely outcome of future decisions (we use computers like this today but they are very limited by the amount of variables we can plug into them)
*Personal life assistant – can record every know idea, thought and interaction you have to guide you through life.
* Nanotechnology – to reproduce exactly an object you need exact information about its molecular make up. Scan it in in 3d and duplicate it by printing it out in 3d again and again -EXACTLY as it was.
* Human genome – already done. But we will be able to store far more complex data being able to create highly complex beings and starships or starstations / spacestations on a truly massive scale…earth sized!
the first easy to use 32-bit computer appeared in 1987 (Acorn A305) with a mouse/keyboard/screen and windows/mac like O/S (RISCOS). They 32bit was only widely adopted in 1995 because of the killer app named internet! Its now 2010.
When certain ‘must have’ apps and functionality come out that can ONLY be done effectively on a 64bit machine that’s when the switch will really happen!
Maybe the first will be google earth in real time where everything is accessed not via HTML web pages but via an interface that looks the same as the real world in real time???
What about Quantum Computers anyone?