ask the infinity blade 3 team. they seem to think the 64 bit made a difference that 32 bit couldn't.
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Qualcomm Marketing Executive Calls Apple's 64-Bit A7 Chip a 'Marketing Gimmick'
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ask the infinity blade 3 team. they seem to think the 64 bit made a difference that 32 bit couldn't.
It's strange how Operating Systems, CPU hungry software or multi-media plug-ins such as audio and imaging effects perform so much better in 64 bit regardless of address space. It must just be a gimmick and everyone's imagining things 
That's what I was thinking.
Yes, the big thing with 64 is more RAM usage but there are other aspects as well. maybe better to start now with 64 and let the developers start cracking at it.
Someone sounds insecure.
Despite the cold, hard facts that 64-bit actually helps.
Sorry the 1.3 GHz dual core A7 beats your 2.3 GHz quad core Snapdragon 800.
Funny how the head of a company that is not commercially selling a 64-bit chip says that Apple's new chip is not that special. I seem to remember the Aesop's Fox saying the grapes were sour and he didn't want them anyway.
Same processing power at 57% the clock speed and probably half the power consumption. Yeah, I'd say that's a killer improvement.
Well, he does have a point that the biggest benefit of 64 bit is addressing over 4 gigs of ram which is a bit usless now, but give it 3 years max and phones will have 4-8 gigs.
I wouldn't really call it a gimmick, I'd call it a feature that won't be fully put to use for a while. Partial use for now.
I wouldn't really call it a gimmick, I'd call it a feature that won't be fully put to use for a while. Partial use for now.
I'm sure the 64-bit processor will make the eventual merging of OSX and iOS much easier for Apple, though.
Don't get it twisted.
The A7 64 bit architecture is currently faster due to changes in the pipeline and overall architecture. Currently there are no 64 bit apps, so you cannot demonstrate any improvement due to 64 bit.
So yes, it is marketing hype.
You don't need 64 bit integers in a mobile application. When you start moving large data sets around and you need memory pointers larger than 32 bits, it matters.
64 bit in desktop architectures mattered because you needed more than 4 GB of memory. Unless you use a windowing scheme, which is real inefficient (look at 286 and 386 processors) you can't access a bunch of memory.
So currently it's hype. In a year maybe not.
The A7 64 bit architecture is currently faster due to changes in the pipeline and overall architecture. Currently there are no 64 bit apps, so you cannot demonstrate any improvement due to 64 bit.
So yes, it is marketing hype.
You don't need 64 bit integers in a mobile application. When you start moving large data sets around and you need memory pointers larger than 32 bits, it matters.
64 bit in desktop architectures mattered because you needed more than 4 GB of memory. Unless you use a windowing scheme, which is real inefficient (look at 286 and 386 processors) you can't access a bunch of memory.
So currently it's hype. In a year maybe not.
The guy is absolutely, 100% spot-on.
People, I get that many of you have blind love for all things Apple, but that doesn't mean that you can't admit that sometimes, Apple's rhetoric doesn't match up with the evidence. For those of you who aren't relatively new to the Apple bandwagon, who remembers the "Megahertz Myth"?
The best argument is the one made above by one poster about future-proofing things. But real-world performance gains today? Give me a break.
People, I get that many of you have blind love for all things Apple, but that doesn't mean that you can't admit that sometimes, Apple's rhetoric doesn't match up with the evidence. For those of you who aren't relatively new to the Apple bandwagon, who remembers the "Megahertz Myth"?
The best argument is the one made above by one poster about future-proofing things. But real-world performance gains today? Give me a break.
Opinions aside, pushing the entire platform towards 64-bit now will pay dividends in the future.
Memory availability is the biggest positive, but like the article said, with 1gb of ram, it doesn't come in to play.
While it will be useful in the future, the 5S would function identically to the user if it were 32bit.
The guy is absolutely, 100% spot-on.
People, I get that many of you have blind love for all things Apple, but that doesn't mean that you can't admit that sometimes, Apple's rhetoric doesn't match up with the evidence. For those of you who aren't relatively new to the Apple bandwagon, who remembers the "Megahertz Myth"?
The best argument is the one made above by one poster about future-proofing things. But real-world performance gains today? Give me a break.
Did you even read the quoted links in the article? This is not the megahertz or core myth all over again. It's pure increased performance per clock. The benchmarks show that. Over and over again.
There's is little benefit to the consumer today.
There will be at some point - when actual phones use 4+ Gigabytes of RAM. The move now ensures that App developers will be ready.
Actually, it could be some other device than just a phone.
There will be at some point - when actual phones use 4+ Gigabytes of RAM. The move now ensures that App developers will be ready.
Actually, it could be some other device than just a phone.
- This ignores the fact that a large address space is not the only benefit of 64-bit. A wide range of operations benefit.
- There is a real, near-term, practical benefit to a large address space - now the OS can use virtual memory. iOS currently (or at least 32-bit iOS, haven't looked at details for 64-bit) does not. All of the address space of all apps has to fit in 4GB. The article characterizes it as an issue only when apps get larger than 4GB.
With 64-bit and virtual memory, now the OS can memory-map files, as it does on desktop OSs.
- There is a real, near-term, practical benefit to a large address space - now the OS can use virtual memory. iOS currently (or at least 32-bit iOS, haven't looked at details for 64-bit) does not. All of the address space of all apps has to fit in 4GB. The article characterizes it as an issue only when apps get larger than 4GB.
With 64-bit and virtual memory, now the OS can memory-map files, as it does on desktop OSs.
In some ways, I think it's marketing. How many times have people bragged that they have a higher res screen, faster proc, more memory, etc.
Though something that confuses me: what is meant by a 64-bit Proc/OS/App? Just how much memory it can handle? If so, why are Mac Pros limited to only 96 GB RAM, yet have terabytes of hard drive space? Also, I'ver heard that, when transitioning from 32-bit to 64-bit, developers need to check to see how big ints & longs are? Sorry if this is a stupid question.
Though something that confuses me: what is meant by a 64-bit Proc/OS/App? Just how much memory it can handle? If so, why are Mac Pros limited to only 96 GB RAM, yet have terabytes of hard drive space? Also, I'ver heard that, when transitioning from 32-bit to 64-bit, developers need to check to see how big ints & longs are? Sorry if this is a stupid question.
Not sure it threatens Qualcomm (at least from the perspective that Apple does not sell it's A-series SoCs to other companies), but it would certainly seem to "show them up." Unless their clients have been pushing for 64-bit SoCs, I can see why they haven't yet produced any. Since Apple has the integration to do everything it needs to around the move to 64-bit (and obviously know their future plans), it must have made sense for them to do so now. There may be products in the pipeline that will need 4GB plus of RAM (in addition to the other benefits) and they wanted to get the developers on-board sooner rather than later. Looking forward to what's to come.
Jesus. Do you not understand that improved benchmarks, yes clock-for-clock, have absolutely nothing (inherently) to do with using 64-bit architecture?
Edit: Here, since people apparently can't figure out basic stuff, here's an article that quotes Apple itself. Note the not-so-subtle-but-apparently-still-hard-for-people-to-grasp distinctions about where performance does and does not come from: http://techland.time.com/2013/09/13/why-in-the-world-would-you-need-a-64-bit-smartphone/
