Intel Atom chips to remain 32-bit-only until 2015

According to a leaked roadmap, it appears that Intel's tiny, low-power Atom processors will remain 32-bit-only until at least 2015.

"Bay Trail" SOCs (system-on-a-chip) will launch in 2014, following next year's Clover Trail. Bay Trail will offer 50 percent less power consumption than Clover, which will already feature over 30 percent less consumption than current SOCs.

Additionally, Intel will offer quad-core variants with 22nm process, including a DirectX11-compliant GPU and resolution support up to 2560x1600.

Until 2015, the Atom chips will remain 32-bit only, limiting tablets (and phones) to 4GB RAM until then. Furthermore, Microsoft will likely have to develop a 32-bit version of Windows 9, even though it is trying to move to exclusively 64-bit operating systems.

Intel is looking to compete against ARM-based chips like the powerful and efficient Qualcomm Snapdragon S4 Pro.

Written by: Andre Yoskowitz @ 26 Nov 2012 23:32

blueboy09

And you wonder why netbooks didn't last so long on the market before tablets killed them: If they didn't build inferior chips for their laptops, then maybe they would've been out a little while longer, at least until tablets were serious competition to them in the market like they are now....

Chance prepares the favored mind. Look up once in a while and you might learn something. - BLUEBOY

27.11.2012 20:58 #1

plazma247

The thing is most of the Atoms on offer today run 64 Bit as they are all mostly dual core.

Personally i love atom boards for custom nas builds.

Ive a few out there running vmware server 2 with a windows vm hanging off the back of it.

That said im planning to to a Core i3-2100T at some point as the vm does grind bit due to the lack of hardware VT.

But for a budget nas they are great :)

30.11.2012 08:53 #2

autolycus

64bit just has to do with how they grab memory chunks and put them into the registers. THAT IS. The problem is AMD owns the rights to this and Intel obviously doesn't want ot pay them. As far as actually "big changes" adding the EX and EE registers isn't that difficult. Screw intel

Your empty, uninformed, comment makes you a fanboy. Yes even you, who thinks they arent a fanboy.

1.12.2012 12:45 #3

ddp

autolycus, i think it is a bit more involved then that as my 32bit intel dual core cpu won't let me install 64bit windows & i only have 2gigs of ram in that laptop. have come across that a few times.

1.12.2012 14:04 #4

A5J4DX

damn

1.12.2012 16:20 #5

WierdName

Originally posted by ddp: autolycus, i think it is a bit more involved then that as my 32bit intel dual core cpu won't let me install 64bit windows & i only have 2gigs of ram in that laptop. have come across that a few times. I don't understand. A 32-bit chip won't be able to run a 64-bit OS unless the chip is actually a '32'-bit, 64-bit compatible one; which is actually just a 64-bit chip. The RAM only affects the install by way of whether the OS needs more. The RAM is accessed by byte and 2^32 is 4294967296. That means 4294967296/(1024*1024*1024) = 4GB physically accessible. Depending on the OS, some of that is usually used for other stuff so you only get an actual 3GB 'available'. However, 64-bit means 18446744073709551616B or 17179869184GB or 17179869184/(1024*1024*1024) = 16 Exabytes. The limiting factor here is no-longer the addressing but the physical hardware.

The 64-bit processor itself is basically just a 32-bit processor with 64-bit registers and datapath. What that means is an instruction word is decoded as a 64-bit long instruction then the 64-bit long registers are read and written to using the result of the datapath that supports 64-bit long ints, floats, etc. Normally, since it's mostly just a 32-bit processor with double bandwidth they can handle 32b instructions and data.

In short, I have to agree with 'autolycus' because unless you want more RAM, you really don't need a 64-bit chip. I highly doubt someone really needs to try running a 64-bit program (that is usually highly processor and memory hungry) on a mobile Atom platform.

EDIT- wait, I think I see what you're saying. That goes back to the processor datapath though. A 64-bit OS is compiled to run on a 64-bit processor. You could install a 32-bit OS on a 64-bit processor but not vica-versa. It's like a commuter car and monster truck with a small and large garage.

Doesnt expecting the unexpected make the unexpected expected and therefore mean youre expecting the expected which was the unexpected until you expected it?
"Opinions are immunities to being told were wrong." - Relient K

3.12.2012 17:04 #6

ddp

try win7 on a dual core atom netbook with 4gigs of ram. a customer has 1 & only netbook that i can remember that has 4gigs compared to all the others with 1gig.

3.12.2012 20:28 #7

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