Dan Andersson wrote:Next Atom generation is rumoured to be 64 bit so we should see a speed gain for Crafty and other bitboard programs.
Symbolic is very strongly bitboard oriented and gets a huge speed benefit from a 64 bit CPU vs a 32 bit.
I'll guess that there's a 64 bit future for any processor design that has to do any task that's more complicated than running a digital wristwatch or simple phone. All the major commercial software players are addicted to an ever growing software bloat.
I agree that accessing free drivers for new hardware will take some time. But most should appear within a year or so.
PowerVR graphics drivers have been a problem for two and a half years or longer. Both drivers and hardware are licensed properties. Unless Intel puts the hurt on the IP holders (or shower them with insane amounts of money) it's likely it is going to continue being a black hole for a long time. A CPU bound drive is not a good idea for Atom based netbooks.
Dan Andersson wrote:PowerVR graphics drivers have been a problem for two and a half years or longer. Both drivers and hardware are licensed properties.
One can only hope that the forces of the free market will eventually eliminate unnecessary and anti-competitive secrecy with respect to interfacing to closed hardware. Regulation is the alternative that's less desirable yet more likely -- consider the European community that's forcing Microsoft to loosen its browser monopoly by requiring de-bundling of Internet Explorer from Windows 7. I can easily see a similar policy being issued towards closed hardware that has a de facto driver monopoly. The government will someday say "if no open interface, then no sales".
Have you tested the Atom with two threads? The processor apparently benefits more from Hyperthreading than P4 ever did:
ars technica wrote:...Back in the Netburst days, Intel targeted a ~20 percent performance increase with HT enabled over HT disabled in an appropriately threaded test, but that was years ago, and a very different architecture. Atom is an in-order architecture, and as such, is potentially vulnerable to stalling out. HT could potentially help the processor keep its pipeline full by seeding the execution units with additional uops.
Based on what I saw, HyperThreading plays a major role in keeping Atom data crunching. Exact results varied from application to application, but enabling HT often boosted performance by around 50 percent. Almost all of the Atom SKUs Intel has announced will offer HyperThreading; it seems to be an essential part of the secret sauce that keeps Atom (somewhat) competitive.
