Intel to ship 64-bit Pentium ‘in time for Longhorn’

IDF Intel confirmed it will bring 64-bit technology to the desktop when Microsoft ships the next major version of Windows, codenamed Longhorn.

And it is likely to bring the recently announced AMD64-like "64-bit extensions" system to the mobile market in the same timeframe, company representatives said today.

Describing the shift from the server environment to the mainstream client as a "big jump", Bill Siu, general manager of Intel's Desktop Platforms Group, admitted that the process of recompiling device drivers and the like for a 64-bit desktop PC would take "some time to complete".

He said Intel expects to see a Windows OS delivering "comprehensive 64-bit support in the Longhorn timeframe".

That puts the arrival of 64-bit addressing in the Pentium 4 sometime around 2006 - and possibly even as late as 2008, if you believe the prognostications of analysts like Gartner.

Whenever Longhorn ships, Intel will be ready, following its previously announced decision to support 64-bit on the desktop "when there is software from an application and operating system standpoint", as President and COO Paul Otellini put it not so long ago.

Anand Chandrasekher, general manager of Intel's Mobile Platforms Group, made much the same comment when asked at what point we will see Intel's 64-bit extensions brought into a mobile context. ®

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