From the Dark Side--Intel Finally Follows Apple into 64-bit Consumer Computing Space

after putting down Apple's and AMD's more than year-old moves to 64-bit consumer computing, according to this PC World article. While in late 2004 Intel marketed 64-bit Xeon processors used in servers running Unix, it has long maintained that 64-bit computing is beyond the consumer space for the forseeable future. Apple introduced the 64-bit Power Mac G5 and AMD produced a 64-bit CPU for consumer desktop computers in 2003. Apple's Mac OS X 10.3.x (Panther) is 64-bit compatible. So now Intel claims to have produced a 64-bit Pentium 4 to run a 64-bit version of Windows still under development--it's at Release Candidate 2. Even so, there need to be applications that take advantage of 64 bits and they are scarce on any consumer platform at present. [Dana Baggett]