64bit OS...

[Trev]

There's also the matter of bothering to upgrade to a 64-bit OS in the first place. Assuming you have a reasonably expanded system, Windows 32-bit will see somewhere between 2GB and 4GB with PAE disabled after your hardware is mapped into place. Unless you're working with the some uber memory intensive applications, that's still quite a bit of memory.

The only thing I've upgraded in my box over the last three and a half years is the video card: Athlon 64 4000+, 1 GB RAM, 6800GT to 7900GT to 8800GTS. I've had my eye on the Core2 Duo and X48 and P45 chipsets, but I'll probably wait until early next year to upgrade. The Core2's are *fast*, but apart from playing a few new games, there's no compelling reason to upgrade.

Give it another year or so, and mainstream support for multicore 64-bit processors will be there. For now, the software (applications and drivers) is still bleeding edge, even if the hardware isn't.

[Trev]

@michael

Optimizing UAE's JIT compiler for 64-bit host systems (and vector units) sounds like a worthy project.

[Trev]

@gazgod

because solaris has only been 64bit for about 10 years!!!!

Ive been running enterprise applications on solaris 64 for years and you reckon its not ready for "prime-time" how much more "prime-time" can you get. when are people going to realise that there a lot more to the world of computing then the cr@p that sits on the desk!!

And Digital/Tru64 Unix and IRIX for longer than that. Chances are, however, that he won't be running Oracle, DB2, SAP, or something else equally as corporatey or scientificy. 64-bit parallel computing has yet to crack the consumer mainstream.

[Trev]

Well then, you want VMware ESX (yeah, it's Linux-based, but it's not a general purpose environment). Install what you need on top of that.

Or go with Windows Server 2008 Enterprise with Hyper-V.

In either case, you can host WinXP 32-bit for everyday putzing around.