64 bit

Either way the Athlon 64 chips are the fastest out there right now for gaming. Go for it!

yep, buy the x64 processor, i have it, and is SO great, you can run 32bits app and 64bit app ( on Windows XP x64), it is SO good..
Recomended 100%

I would also get amd 64bit cpu since they are bit faster than 32bit versions.

*sees no programming*

Just another friendly reminder, to yet another thread, that this might have been better off posted in The Lounge.

If you hoped that posting it here would imply "for game development":

Since you're asking us, I would assume you've not got your fangs deep into the slab of meat called "the gaming industry". As such, you probably have a long time (read: anything you buy now will have become obselete) before you work on a team that's going to create an application that's actually going to need a cutting edge computer (and actually starting to need it), and would thus I would recomend buying based on what games you want to run (returning to my suggestion of posting it in the lounge, since at that point, it dosn't have to do with programming).

Just my 2 cents.

Off topic, moved.

If you're going to buy a new machine definitely go 64-bit.

I remember when I bought my first computer. It was a 286 (16-bit) at just about the time when 386s (32-bit) were getting popular.

A few months after I bought it things like Ultima 7 (needed a 386) and Links 386 (guess by the name what it needed) were released and I was PISSED that I couldn't run those games.

Now, you do have some time, I don't think you'll be seeing massive 64-bit apps for six months to a year, so I wouldn't necessarily junk your current 32-bit machine but if you're going to buy one, go 64-bit.

I have an Athlon64 3800 and its fantastic.

Quote:

Original post by linternet Now, you do have some time, I don't think you'll be seeing massive 64-bit apps for six months to a year, so I wouldn't necessarily junk your current 32-bit machine but if you're going to buy one, go 64-bit.

Just to throw it into the mix, everything I've read about Unreal Engine 3.0 tools (e.g. UnrealEd 3) is that they'll require a 64bit work station. Granted, said tools aren't publicly available, and even then it's only relevent for developers (not gamers).

I'm sure more tools will start to make use of 64bit soon, but I've not seen much news of them yet.

Jack

Quote:

Original post by ace_lovegrove I have an Athlon64 3800 and its fantastic.

Well, I'm not quite as rich, but for what it's worth I <3 my Athlon64 3200+.

Quote:

Just to throw it into the mix, everything I've read about Unreal Engine 3.0 tools (e.g. UnrealEd 3) is that they'll require a 64bit work station. Granted, said tools aren't publicly available, and even then it's only relevent for developers (not gamers). I'm sure more tools will start to make use of 64bit soon, but I've not seen much news of them yet. Jack

Yah they'll be early adopters and if you need to work with those guys then, yes, you'll NEED a 64-bit machine early on. All I'm saying is that it'll be a while before you need one to play your favorite game.

Quote:

Original post by linternet Quote: Just to throw it into the mix, everything I've read about Unreal Engine 3.0 tools (e.g. UnrealEd 3) is that they'll require a 64bit work station. Granted, said tools aren't publicly available, and even then it's only relevent for developers (not gamers). I'm sure more tools will start to make use of 64bit soon, but I've not seen much news of them yet. Jack Yah they'll be early adopters and if you need to work with those guys then, yes, you'll NEED a 64-bit machine early on. All I'm saying is that it'll be a while before you need one to play your favorite game.

True...

From my general understanding there are two features of a 64bit chip that you simply cannot get under current generation stuff:
- Extended address space, in theory around 18tb (?) of physical RAM addressing. Although I did read that the A64's only use 48bit addressing??
- New/different instruction set (IA64 and so on), not classic x86

so... if they were to actually require a 64bit chip in order to play a game, it could mean that it uses >32bit addressable RAM? A peak memory usage of over 4gb [oh]. That's just getting silly! I wonder what the installs would be... (Unreal-3: Minimum install 82.5gb)

All guesstimates really, so probably won't happen [smile]
Jack

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Original post by jollyjeffers - New/different instruction set (IA64 and so on), not classic x86

IA64 is quite dead now Intel is doing things right with EMT64.
AMD's x86-64 has a few new instructions and registers. Don't know what you mean by classic x86, but SSE and all those instructions aren't classic as well and have nothing to do with 64-bit CPUs.

Quote:

Original post by vNistelrooy Quote: Original post by jollyjeffers - New/different instruction set (IA64 and so on), not classic x86 IA64 is quite dead now Intel is doing things right with EMT64. AMD's x86-64 has a few new instructions and registers. Don't know what you mean by classic x86, but SSE and all those instructions aren't classic as well and have nothing to do with 64-bit CPUs.

To be honest, I've not paid 64bit technologies much interest beyond reading the occasional article. I'd forgotten about the various names for the latest-n-greatest [smile]

As for "classic" x86, I just meant it as in the 64bit instruction sets being slightly newer probably offer the possibility for better machine code generation using the various new/advanced features...

Jack

I don't see 32-bit applications going away anytime in the near future. It's only been a couple of years since all the 16-bit applications were finally purged from our network at work. 64-bit processors are at a very premium price and will remain there for a while. As long as that's the case, most people are going to be buying lower end PCs with Pentium 4 Celerons and the like. I wouldn't be worried about the short term.

But at the same time, the Athlon 64 line are some great chips and if I were building a system for myself, I'd be going with that line.

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Original post by JimboC [...]64-bit processors are at a very premium price and will remain there for a while.[...]

IME, this isn't true for custom built machines. I priced the cheapest computer I could build, and it ended up that a complete 32-bit system (cheap CRT, $1 gfx, etc) had the same price as a 64-bit pc semi-upgrade (cpu, mobo, case / power, RAM, decent gfx card, etc but NO display, keyboard, mouse, speakers, hd, cdrw, dvd, etc)
If you're talking about buying prebuilt, then I guess it might be true in the sense that I haven't seen a 64-bit prebuilt unless you're looking at places that have beds of cash such as alienware.