Well, my computer is not a server and it is not a personal PC... it is between the two... it is called a "work station"... a "work station" is somehow a single server board in desktop casing...

Spec are very similar to a MAC pro... dual quad core Xeon... Xeon being the industry equivalent of desktop processor... for benchmark, seek on these forum... there was a benchmark topic some time ago and i have post my result... good luck with the "search" function from these forum

Well, when i have wrote my car analogy, i have think that seat row was register ( more row in a bus )... number of seat in the row is relative to the register size ( 64 bits in place of 32 bits )...

Several of your cited speedup are mainly due to SSE instruction set... in fact, since the i7 gulftown serie, a AES-NI instruction set was added, these last will speed up encryption software greatly... next year, a new set called AVX, suitable for intensive calculations in multimedia, scientific and financial applications, will be introduced in the planned in the "Sandy bridge" processor... as today, only Linux kernel 2.6.30, windows server 2008 and windows 7 SP1 are compatible... having 256 bits register who can be extended to 512 or 1024 bits is certainly something who will push me to move from my old XP pro x64 to the future windows 8...

I am not against progress when progress is real... and recent processor have faster/better extension set... i remember long time ago... moving from a 386sx to a 486dx... the important thing was the dx part, a ALU instruction set... same thing with actual processor... extension set are more important that the fake 64 bits address range... in fact, very few desktop computer will be able to add enough ram on the motherboard for reach the limit of 32 bits motherboard ( who are 36 bits since the pentium pro )... so much computer have only 2 memory slot... what is the need to have a address range of 256 TB? Specially when 32 bits OS allow a max of 64 gb !!! 32 bits Windows desktop OS cannot access it directly mainly due to licensing... but the kernel is able to access it... it is proven with the 32 bits server/datacenter edition of windows...

Nobody obligate you to read my post... and i think that everybody on these forum have enough brain for decide by themself if they wish or not reply to my post !

Well, i have windows XP pro x64... and it work good on my desktop computer... have solaris and linux too... my laptop is with Vista x64... simply don't use it because it crash when my ram is in raid mode with 8 bits control... my computer is on 24/24 7/7 and very stable... i have several expensive x64 3D application who simply don't work with windows 7... it will work with server 2008 R2 but i don't wish spend a lot of money on a new OS since the actual one work good for now... very possible that in the future, my 3D application will be made windows 7 ( or windows 8 planned to be released next year ) compatible... in so case, i will move to the more recent compatible OS...

I am not against x86-64, i am not against progress... but i become tired of the false marketing excuse who push people to buy new material/OS/Software... Computer world is not more about progress but about making more money faster... computer performance have made fewer progress in the last 10 year that in the last decade of the previous century !!!

I am sure you know your stuff but when you argued that the only difference between a 32bit and 64 bit cpu was the number of seats on a bus I felt it was a pretty poor analogy.

64 bit computers make working with large files, video etc much easier.A 64 bit os/cpu is also great for working with encrypted files. Also because you have more registers to play with you can keep more data in cpu with out having to go to second level cache. Anyway what ever the benefits or drawbacks are, 64bit is here to stay while 32bit cpus/os will be become sidelined.

BTW I like your picture of the box.

Thoumsin - Impressive cable routing with the power cables. Nice and clean.

The funny part is him pretending MMX, 3dnow, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSE4 never happened.  Overclock that 486, lets see how fast that puppy is running modern software!  Owait, it won't even run it.  Right.

The evolution of Windows that makes even XP and 2000 much more different than they appear to be apparently never happened either.

Even my dad isn't this senile.  And with that, I'm outta here.

well, from one of my previous post :

What make actual processor being fast are mainly due to their multi core and their instruction set architecture ( MMX, SSE, AES, etc )...

Funny, it seem that you are not able to read what i have wrote... certainly my mistake...

well, it is not the only difference... have speak about the special instruction set too, about CPU able to use GPU... have can speak of serial line for connect to memory, of CPU cache, etc...

No merit here... i have simply follow the instruction of the box manual... good airflow is very important for power hungry system like mine... at full power, the system use a little more that 1350 watt !!!

Hmmm... power use can be a very valid reason for the industry to move on recent processor... electricity bill are recurrent cost for business... and each generation of processor lower the ratio "power used/gigaflops"...

This was the original post... have show that the 2 gigabyte limit was in now way related to 32 bit system ( there is 32 windows OS who use several Terabyte of RAM )... Have show that Windows 7 64 bit was not the single available 64 bit OS ( i use XP pro x64 )...

At personal level, why do i like XP pro x64? It is the only desktop release of Microsoft where kernel and base code is identical to a server version... This is evident when the System Information tool reports the current OS as Windows Server 2003 x64 and not Windows XP !!! And it is why i am not attracted to Win 7 who remain a limited version of Windows server 2008...

Yes, it is good that people upgrade their system... but it is wrong to push them for the wrong reasons... several people have show here that 64 bit was the way to go for several reasons... who can show me that i am wrong to remain with Windows XP pro x64 ? Who can prove me that i am limited to 2gb by application if i don't move to Windows 7? My actual OS limit me to 128 GB of physical memory ( motherboard support only 32 gb ) and 16 TB of virtual memory... Isn't enough for any application created in the next few years ?

Devs wish us to move all on Win7 for a very simple reason... make their life more easy... making a software 100% compatible with two OS is more difficult that make it for one OS... Win7 will prevail and not fail like Vista... but the migration ask time... as today, more that 50% of people remain use the simple desktop version of XP... Devs work become more difficult due to these transition period and they try to push people to move faster using false excuse... i am not against moving faster but i am against the false excuse... using a lie for justify something is wrong, same if the "something" is good...

I'm staying with 32bit xp, until i can switch to either a mac or to linux.

Why limit yourself to one single OS... i use a linux boot loader called GRUB... for now, when i start my computer, i can choice between Kubuntu, Solaris, and XP pro x64...

For those who have XP 32 bits and by example Win7 x64, for have the best of each world, without the limitation of some of the Virtual Machine system, simply install both system and use a boot loader...

I plan to buy windows 8 when i will be released but it don't mean that i will fully switch to it... unless all my actual application are upgraded to windows 8, something very improbable...

excellent points thoumsin...

There is also there is hackintosh (since he mentioned mac)

I did read it, but I was in a pretty bad mood.

Though calling the I7 a glorified 8086 then pointing out its massive differences doesn't work.

Anyway, my apologies.  I need to get some caffeine.  :]

Why it doesn't work ?

The term x86 refers to a family of instruction set architecture based on the Intel 8086 CPU. Many additions and extensions have been added to the x86 instruction set over the years, with full backward compatibility.

AMD's 64 bit extension of x86 (which Intel eventually responded to with a compatible design) and the scalability of x86 chips such as the eight-core Intel Xeon and 12-core AMD Opteron is underlining x86 as an example of how continuous refinement of established industry standards can resist the competition from completely new architectures.

There have been several attempts, also within Intel itself, to break the market dominance of the "inelegant" x86 architecture that descended directly from the first simple 8-bit microprocessors. Examples of this are the iAPX 432 (alias Intel 8800), the Intel 960, Intel 860 and Intel and Hewlett Packard Itanium architecture.

Seem that the text in Italic show it... yes, the x86 architecture have evolve... in some way like a Ferrari F40 is based on the same "architecture" that a old Ford T... x86-16, x86-32 or x86-64 remain with a similar instruction set architecture... with only add-on who allow better performance...

Soon of later, some physical limit will be reach and something new ( architecture or more ) will appear... it have already appear a few time but dev or customer refuse a real change... Linux, Windows, MAC OS X, Solaris, etc are mainly build from the previous version... a fully new architecture will mean that every piece of software need to be rewrite from zero !!!

[/quote]Anyway, my apologies.  I need to get some caffeine.  :][/quote]

Apologies not needed... after all, we are on a forum for share our opinion... maybe less caffeine will help to discuss in a less agressive way ...

For the curious, a interesting article at http://www.geoffchappell.com/viewer.htm?doc=notes/windows/license/memory.htm

Now, i remember why i remain with XP pro... i have two quad core Xeon... XP pro support the two processor... Vista Home Premium x64 support only one processor, same if it is wrote that the software may be used “on up to two processors on” the licensed “device at one time”. The price for starting Windows with even one unlicensed processor is that the kernel disables its support for the CPU feature known formally as Page Size Extensions (PSE) and known commonly as large pages. So, in some case, there is serious reasons for not "upgrading"... specially when upgrade mean in fact downgrade !!! Have install Vista x64 on my laptop who is single processor... and there, no problem...

No less caffeine is the problem I had a pretty annoying headache.

I've tried going off caffeine.  I can make it about three weeks before I get incredibly frustrated and go right back on it

And people think Gen Y are the Dew addicts, hah.

The point is even the floating point unit was not in the 8086.  Most programmers nowadays don't even support below SSE2.

Thoumsin - I doubt your dual Xeon setup can match a 6 core i7 extreme. Seriously.

Performance is not all about the processor itself but related to the general motherboard block diagram...

By example, on a i7, link between processor and SouthBridge is called DMI ( direct media interface ) with a max speed of 10 Gb/sec... On Xeon, it is called ESI ( Enterprise SouthBridge interface ) with a max speed of 20/Gb/sec... in my case, i have two ESI line...

Other example, i7 extreme edition have a single 6.4 GT/S QPI... modern Xeon use a full four-quadrant interface to achieve 25.6 GB/s... my older Xeon can use 8 serial line when 8 bank are populated and reach a max speed 32 GB/s using full buffered DDR2...

Bios from server board are somehow more complex that these of desktop board... my best benchmark is not reach by using windows because a lot of my best bios option is tagged "not with windows"... these option will work with Linux, Unix, MAC OS x, Solaris, etc... a example is the "Discrete MTTR Allocation" who achieve better and faster graphic effect with a computer having more that 4GB RAM...

Of course, i am pretty sure that a today Xeon will win without any problem when compare to my 4 year old Xeon... Point is Xeon general architecture have more performance that desktop processor... recent i7 extreme slowly reach the level of my system... but if i upgrade, i will remain with Xeon... i7 extreme are overprized when related to their performance... it is not without reason that professional remain with Xeon ( or Opteron )... in some way, it is like compare a top consumer car and a Formule One car...

And performance have a tag price too... have use a 15000$ MAC PRO configuration for model... using other brand like supermicro have allow to reach a good price tag of 5000$ but these remain a high price when compare to desktop... without speaking of my power use who is around the 1.3 kw/h !

Well, i am happy with my actual system... before, with Desktop computer, for keep performance related to the latest game, i was obligate to buy a new computer each year... it have turn that my workstation allow me to remain a more long time running new top game without the feel the need to upgrade... 

Point is that general performance is not only related to the processor only... motherboard layout is very important too... that Desktop processor will always be limited when related to Server processor... like Desktop windows OS is a limited version of the server one...

In the future, Intel wish make processor who are all identical, where feature are unlocked by buying a license for the feature... hope that it will happen... somebody will be able to start with a low performance low price processor, and slowly enable more core, more cache, more feature by buying license...

Well, it mean that most programmers are bad programmers

Because SSE adds floating point support, it seen much more used than MMX. The addition of SSE2's integer support makes SSE even more flexible. While MMX is redundant, operations can be operated in parallel with SSE operations offering further performance increases in some situations.

SSE3 add a handful of DSP-oriented mathematics instructions and some process (thread) management instructions.

SSSE3 add 16 new opcodes which include permuting the bytes in a word, multiplying 16-bit fixed-point numbers with correct rounding, and within-word accumulate instructions.

SSE4 add a dot product instruction, additional integer instructions, a popcnt instruction, and more.

Each SSE version is simply a add-on for the previous version... a stand alone SSE4 will never work...

In some way, x86 instruction code are the foundation of the building... each time that a add-on instruction set is created ( MMX, SSE, etc ), it is like we add a new level to the building... destroy one level and all level up are destroy too... one day, it will not more be possible to add level due to the weak and old x86 foundation without having the full building to crash... and it will be the begin of a really new architecture... optronic, quantum, chimical, biological computer can be these next generation... these that we see in sci-fi film/series...

Hardware is only one side of the computer world... software is very important too... from my personal point of view, i will like very much a computer who work like in the following video at the software level : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7W52TL9Akv4 ... fully integration of several application, less use of keyboard or mouse, AI, etc...

Performance IS about the CPU itself. Are you crazy? The i7 simply has more cores than a Xeon. That means it can do more.