It is the fact that Advanced Micro Devices, which is also known as AMD introduced 64 bit technology processors that was previously only used with servers. Thanks to this, AMD became the winner of the best desktop Pcs processors competition. Few days later, Intel introduced the new version of P4 called Extreme Edition but it did not take the AMD's place. Not so long ago, Intel reviewed its processors production policy of increasing the frequency to gain better performance. Now – it followed AMD which redesigns the processors' architecture, does not increase timing and even with 1Ghz clock difference – Athlons are still much faster than Intel's P4. AMD made a decision to introduce 64bit technology and they made it. Let me explain what this 64bit is all about, because for many people this is just an empty phrase. The processors up till now are mostly 32bit, which allows them to operate with 4 bytes (4 bytes = 32 bits). This was perfectly good some time ago. The need for the processors computing power caused the new, 64bits technology. Thanks to that, Athlons64 were equipped with double as many registers (a register is a memory unit cell built in the CPU, logically and arithmetical operations in the registers are much faster than data in RAM or CPU's cache) and each can operate with 8 bytes (8 bytes = 64 bits). It allows a much faster data flow and more precise and faster computatoins as well. Next change is intergration of most functions of the north bridge inside of the CPU. In the new Athlon, AMD64 technology was used. This allows 64bits processor to work with 32bits system and applications. Integrating the dual channel memory controller inside the CPU yield 6,4 GB/s memory bandwith.
Link:
http://www.oc-service.com/articles/r/280.html
64 bits for desktop PCs
25th January 2005, 13:29
64 bits for desktop PCs 
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