主题：【评论】64位的Windows XP真得快吗？-- 实战纪实 -- Highway

With every major milestone release, Microsoft’s 64-bit Windows variants are getting faster and more stable. While some minor quirks remain, the operating system as a whole is a very impressive product, especially given the high pressure nature of this release and the ever-changing 64-bit processor landscape. While wide driver availability issues certainly loom in the distance, the stability of the core OS is certainly at a release quality level.

Build 1218 is a major step forward for Microsoft’s 64-bit Windows program, as we’re finally starting to see performance increases over today’s 32-bit Windows XP variants. This could be due to optimizations on the OS level, the addition of 64-bit DirectX 9.0 components, nVidia’s 64-bit Forceware drivers, or a combination of all of the above. While performance varies from application to application, many applications and games are now seeing noticeable performance boosts under 64-bit Windows. While the performance boosts are not up to par with the 15-20% boost which AMD promised in the past, we’re certainly seeing steps in the right direction. For comparison, all of the previous Windows XP 64-bit builds we’ve previewed at GamePC have more or less shown performance decreases compared to their 32-bit equivalents.

As for AMD and Intel’s 64-bit abilities, we actually see a fairly close split in performance between AMD’s Opteron 248 and Intel’s Xeon 3.4 GHz processors. Neither processor proves itself to be the dominant chip for processing 64-bit Windows code, and both chips appear to be incredibly stable under this beta OS at this time. We did notice that our Opteron platforms have much broader driver compatibility compared to our Xeon setups. All of the onboard devices on our Opteron board, such as LAN, SCSI, and audio had native XP 64-bit drivers, whereas none of these components had 64-bit drivers for our Xeon platform. Intel still refuses to release 64-bit drivers for their many components, even though they are now publicly promoting 64-bit technology through EMT64.

We still don’t know when or if this operating system will be officially released to the public. The latest information we’re hearing is that the OS will not be in a finalized state until early 2005, and even when the OS is “done”, it may not be available to end users. While Microsoft has left open the door for releasing a retail boxed version, it will more than likely only be available to OEM’s to pre-load onto 64-bit compatible systems. Microsoft has tossed around the idea of a license trade-in plan, where users of today’s 32-bit Windows XP could “upgrade” their current version at no cost. Unfortunately, nothing is set in stone as of yet.

The performance and feature benefits are not great enough to pull me away from Windows XP Professional on my home Athlon64 PC at this time, but the OS is getting more attractive with each new build.