"Testing 64-bit performance is still a somewhat dicey proposition. Major benchmarks are either lacking, or don't work properly. For example, SYSmark 2007 simply doesn't run on a 64-bit OS (Vista or XP). And while there's now a 3ds Max 9 SPECapc benchmark, the benchmark crashes consistently with a scripting error before it completes when running on 3ds Max 9 64-bit under Vista 64-bit. On the other hand, there are more 64-bit applications and benchmarks now. That system-sapping game, Crysis, ships with a 64-bit client. 3ds Max 9, Lightwave 9, POV-Ray, and the Cinebench rendering benchmark all have 64-bit versions. Futuremark's PCMark Vantage offers a 64-bit version of that Vista-centric, synthetic test. On top of that, anyone using 64-bit Vista will still be running a lot of 32-bit applications. So we benchmarked some of those as well. Let's take a look at the benchmarks and test system."
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Member since:2006-01-06
Easy: Microsoft is first and foremost about marketing and trying to chase new markets, not spend money on markets they already totally own.
Also there's that little problem with Microsoft really being at the mercy of the hardware guys for device driver development compared with the centralization of the hardware drivers in the OS code. Pretty big boat anchor for them to overcome.
They didn't feel forced into supporting it so quickly and they've had bad technical problems trying to port their hacked up x86 code base. So effectively yes, they pretty much gave a huge lead to their competitors in the area which they're still very weak: servers and high performance computing. With the extreme high prices they charge in that area with really abysmal performance (especially IO) I just don't see them getting that market in the near future.
Edited 2008-04-03 04:06 UTC
Member since:2006-01-02
Member since:
2007-12-08
From the marketing standpoint one would think it did not even exist. Because MS does not market it, if they do have a plug it is very, very small.
On the other hand, Red Hat Linux is in my opinion way ahead in the 64 bit realm, really all of the Linux distro's are accelerating out past MS in this area. Why I honestly believe it is because they do not really have any competition in this area and they will let it slip by then try to conquer the competitor as they have done in the past.
How many 'pre-loaded' 64 bit Windows boxes have you ever seen in a store much less on a website? If you do find it most of the time it is a tiny section and it almost as if it does not even exist.
Being a Linux Admin, about 90% of all of the production servers are RHEL5.1 64 because the servers have 32gig of memory and the setup can utilize the hardware in a more efficient way. I just do not understand why MS has missed the boat on this, trying to find 64 bit on their site is like trying to find a ad for Red Hat...