IA 64 Architecture Performance and Price
- This is a preview of the essay.
To view the full text you must login!
Introduction
In the high-end computer market of large servers and enterprise computing, the performance limits of 32-bit systems are rapidly being reached. In order to increase speed and processing power, it is necessary to make the move to 64-bit computing. A single example will help us to understand the difference in power between the two.
In a single clock cycle, a 32-bit processor can handle a number up to 2^32 (about 4.3 billion) whereas a 64-bit system can manage a number up to 2^64 or 18.4 quintillion. This capability would be an obvious boon to scientific programming where large number mathematics are frequently a required component.
The memory capacity is directly affected by the bit rating of a processor. A 32-bit system supports 4GB of memory. The Operating System can only allocate (usually) 2GB of memory to a running application...