Re: Will Prescott work on Win64?

> It was discussed in some newsgroup, maybe this one, that only a very small
> fraction of code needs 64 bits.  You only need 64 bit addressing for really
> large programs (there is always PAE if you need it).

Immediate need is irrelevant.  You need to have 64bit machines everywhere
by the time it's needed.  That's why SGI made the R4000 a 64bit CPU even
though they only came up with a 64bit OS several years later.

The production costs of having the AMD64 support are basically nil:
the only real cost is in the design stage.  So if you've designed it,
it makes no sense not to include it on every chip.

I.e. it's basically like "support for CMOVE" or "support for full
virtualization", ... maybe very few people need it, but it doesn't make any
sense not to provide it if you've done the work already.


        Stefan