this post was submitted on 04 Dec 2023
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Why hasn't 128 bit been introduced yet? (alien.top)
submitted 1 year ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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x86 came out 1978,

21 years after, x64 came out 1999

we are three years overdue for a shift, and I don't mean to arm. Is there just no point to it? 128 bit computing is a thing and has been in the talks since 1976 according to Wikipedia. Why hasn't it been widely adopted by now?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

What would even be the point, how would you justify the expense of making modern CPUs 128bit (transistors and R&D ain't free)? We aren't anywhere near the limit of 64bit addressing and won't reach that point for decades, modern "64-bit" consumer CPUs don't even bother going for full 64-bit addressing space, since it wouldn't be of use anyway. For arithmetic, it's easily doable without any architectural changes.