Whats the big deal about 64bit when there is less than 4GB ram?

[Daveoc64]

I'm not even a hardcore computer science geek but when Phil said it was 64 bit yesterday, I definitely understood the significance of it.

What he said was true, it took (and is still taking) absolutely YEARS for the PC industry to go 64 bit.

For Apple to do it on a phone? Incredible.

That was actually the only WOW moment of the entire event for me.

Why is it such a wow moment?

Industry adoption of 64-bit has been slow because it offers negligible benefits in most scenarios, and potentially even some downsides. Making everything 64-bit is just not necessary.

 

[tymaster50]

so basically it's faster. Great to know Apple. Soon they will be running out of things to say lol

 

[JaySoul]

Why is it such a wow moment?

Industry adoption of 64-bit has been slow because it offers negligible benefits in most scenarios, and potentially even some downsides. Making everything 64-bit is just not necessary.

Industry adoption has been slow due to PC fragmentation on both the hardware and software front.

Sorry to trot out the old "Apple hardware/software under one roof" thing, but them making it 64 bit suddenly means that in the next 3-5 years, you'll get hundreds of millions of portable devices at 64 bit.

According to those Infinity Blade guys, Apple also made it very easy to switch up from 32 to 64. That's the crucial part - making it easy for software developers to actually take advantage.

It just means faster computations and better management of resources - aside from the usual processor/GPU advancements, this is something that promotes convergance between hardware/software.

It will take a few years to see the full significance but I believe it to be a big deal.

 

[KenAFSPC]

Wrong link. x86-64 has nothing to do with ARM v8. Whatever benefits x86-64 has wouldn't mean the same for ARM v8, they're entirely different architectures.

The whole point of x86-64 is to make the extra registers of a 64-bit CPU compatible with a legacy platform where the majority of applications are 32-bit.

The extra registers could provide a small gain, maybe 2-3% for some tasks and 4-5% for many tasks, on the iPhone. I wouldn't expect much more than that. The applications that would benefit most from the extra registers aren't the type of applications that you typically find on a phone.

I suspect the real reason for Apple's 64-bit push may be to distinguish dual-core (IP5/IP5C and earlier) and quad-core (IP5S) platforms. I suspect compiling 64-bit for the IP5S will enable additional optimizations for multithreading.

 

[Mrbobb]

so basically it's faster. Great to know Apple. Soon they will be running out of things to say lol

How else can they charge us usd$600-900 for a stupid gadget?

But one point to Apple (from the other A7 post), we are getting more power for FREE: No bigger battery required, engine doesn't run any hotter. These days, that's a good thing.

 

[Starfyre]

64-bit also means that instructions will take up a lot more space, moreso than 32-bit... with the memory unchanged, one would think that it means less memory for the phone... is that really worth the performance gains? Seems like its a case of iPhone 5s saying to iPhone 5 "I do what I can faster... but I have less room to work with."

 

[Mr. Retrofire]

I meant platform and app convergence. There will of course be different form factors.

OK, i understand this now.