Please, post your opinion. Here are my two cents on this subject.
I have read several posts defending the idea of "get a new Macbook C2D because it uses 64 bits technology and it is more bullet proof than the not so old core duo models". This sort of misleading message is being spread much faster with the upcoming Leopard release.
It looks to me that the current situation is exactly the same years ago when AMD introduced their 64 bit solution to the market. Many people jumped to the wagon without even thinking what that technology really meant (there were no Windows version to get advantage of 64 bits and even linux had its bag of issues). So they paid a hefty price in order to get their "bullet proof" AMD CPU without any gain on real world applications (but only on the buyer's psyche
).
Despite the fact that Leopard is (will be) a native 64 bit operational system,
I do not see how portables will take real advantage of it. If you could
install more than 4Gb of memory, then it could be arguable. Sometimes, marketing aside, it is good to remember that the difference between 32 and 64 bits comes down to how a computer stores and makes connections to memory, data, files, etc. A bit can have a value of 1 or 0, nothing else. By using 32 bits your processor can represent numbers from 0 to 4,294,967,295 while a 64-bit machine can represent numbers from 0 to 18,446,744,073,709,551,615. Hence, if you do not have enough memory in the system, your bullet proof 64 bit CPU is nothing better than a 32 bit CPU (well, at least for numerical calculations).
I am NOT saying that Leopard will run slower than Tiger as everybody well knows how Apple takes pride on releasing polished and sleekier systems everytime. I just want to make a point that portables will see 64bit advantages when they get more than 4Gb of physical RAM.
Until then...
I have read several posts defending the idea of "get a new Macbook C2D because it uses 64 bits technology and it is more bullet proof than the not so old core duo models". This sort of misleading message is being spread much faster with the upcoming Leopard release.
It looks to me that the current situation is exactly the same years ago when AMD introduced their 64 bit solution to the market. Many people jumped to the wagon without even thinking what that technology really meant (there were no Windows version to get advantage of 64 bits and even linux had its bag of issues). So they paid a hefty price in order to get their "bullet proof" AMD CPU without any gain on real world applications (but only on the buyer's psyche
).Despite the fact that Leopard is (will be) a native 64 bit operational system,
I do not see how portables will take real advantage of it. If you could
install more than 4Gb of memory, then it could be arguable. Sometimes, marketing aside, it is good to remember that the difference between 32 and 64 bits comes down to how a computer stores and makes connections to memory, data, files, etc. A bit can have a value of 1 or 0, nothing else. By using 32 bits your processor can represent numbers from 0 to 4,294,967,295 while a 64-bit machine can represent numbers from 0 to 18,446,744,073,709,551,615. Hence, if you do not have enough memory in the system, your bullet proof 64 bit CPU is nothing better than a 32 bit CPU (well, at least for numerical calculations).
I am NOT saying that Leopard will run slower than Tiger as everybody well knows how Apple takes pride on releasing polished and sleekier systems everytime. I just want to make a point that portables will see 64bit advantages when they get more than 4Gb of physical RAM.
Until then...
