Drought of iAMD64 software looks set to continue

Quoting an AMD representative Hal Speed (sic), the magazine says there will only be a handful of 64-bit games for some months. Cloanto will cater to software emulation, it appears. But everyone appears to be waiting for Microsoft to get its finger out and release an OS that supports iAMD64.

Oracle too, seems to be in a bit of a monk* about both Intel and AMD supporting X86-64.

It won't rewrite its 32 bit apps for the X86-64 platform it appears. Presumably it has put much effort into developing its database for the Itanium, and is likely to throw its toys out of the pram at the prospect of starting the port once more.

Its reason is that its 32-bit databases will run just fine on 32-bit chips.

The magazine also points out that upgrading the 64-bit machines that will emanate from Intel and AMD will cost a bundle.

It quotes an analyst called Peter Glaskowsky from the Microprocessor Report as saying that the AMD Athlon 64 flies faster than Intel's Prescott in most benchmark tests.

You'd think that Intel could bully Microsoft into releasing Windows for iAMD64 early. But the suspicion remains that Chipzilla is just twiddling its paws and waiting for things to happen before it pulls the switch on its own products. µ

* THAT IS, in a bit of a bate.

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