Intel Begins Shipping 64-bit Prescotts

Rucas writes "With a minimum of fanfare, Intel has begun shipping a version of the Pentium 4 with 64-bit instruction set extensions. The news came to light not via an Intel press release, but rather through the spec sheet for a new server from IBM. In the midst of the new IBM eServer xSeries servers based on the recently released 64-bit Xeon is a blade server powered by the 64-bit Prescott. This marks the first product appearance of the new CPU."

Subdued Release

[Waffle Iron]

The low profile introduction can be explained by the official designation for the new instruction set features: they will be known as the IA32-NIH extensions.

Intel Marketing Blunder

[Anonymous Coward]

They should have gone for 65bit chips.

Who wouldn't want a chip that's one better than the competition?

Re:Where are the 64 bit apps?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm a programmer and I have yet to see a need to get a 64 bit chip.


This is commonly known as VB disease.

Re:A Note on memory addressing

[KidSock]

Thus, total system memory size for these processors is limited to 64GB

Oh, no! Does that mean I can't run Longhorn?!