64-bit computing to heat up for system builders

In the coming year, 64-bit computing will become red-hot in higher-end servers, digital convergence will drive new opportunities for system builders and Linux-based home entertainment PCs will become a small but growing niche for workstation integrators.

Those were among the predictions presented to system builders at the CMP XChange conference, co-sponsored by Tom's Hardware Guides in the US earlier this month.

Database applications will drive sharp sales growth in 64-bit processors in the coming year, thanks mostly to the money enterprises will be able to save on per-CPU software licensing fees, predicted Nathan Brookwood, principal analyst for Insight 64. 'Databases are the killer app for 64-bit computing,' Brookwood said.

Because 64-bit processors can address more memory, surpassing the 4GB limitation of 32-bit processors, they enable database applications to run more efficiently by keeping more data available in memory. And that will enable enterprises to use fewer CPUs. 'If I can do on two CPUs what I was doing on four, I just saved US$100,000,' he said.

The analysis shows there will be little need for Advanced Micro Devices' 64-bit Opteron processor on the desktop in the coming year, Brookwood told system builders at the conference. 'AMD will have to sell it as a darn good 32-bit processor,' he said.

Another issue system builders are going to face over the next few years is the rising amount of heat coming from processors as they get faster and smaller, resulting from the leakage of electronics, he said. That will lead to increased use of liquid cooling systems, among other things.

Omid Rahmat, general manager of Tom's Guides Publishing, which operates the Tom's Hardware Web site, in his keynote listed the PCI Express bus, Serial ATA storage interface, whitebooks and wireless, Gigabit Ethernet and VoIP networking as key technologies for system builders in the coming year.

But he also warned that system performance was no longer a market driver and that users will instead be looking for cooler, quieter and smaller computing devices. He also advised system builders to move beyond the idea that integrating systems is their central strategy to becoming integrators of devices within the 'Microsoft device universe.'

'I think a lot of you are going to become digital device integrators,' Rahmat said. 'Computers aren't going away, they are just going to become less intrusive.'

For workstation integrators, Linux-based home entertainment PCs could become a strong niche, multimedia analyst Jon Peddie of Jon Peddie Research.

Peddie said the market for entertainment PCs, a segment that includes media centre systems, should grow from 3.8 million units in 2002 to 14.9 million units by 2006, a growth rate about 10 times that of the desktop market.

And while Windows-based systems will account for the lion's share of that market unit-wise, Linux systems, driven by the anything-but-Microsoft attitude, could grow 298 percent to more than 2 million units over that period. 'It's an area that has very high growth and is not oversaturated,' Peddie said.