Well, it has been a long time coming, but the 64 bit evolution of the PC processor is here. AMD has released the Athlon 64 in a variety of flavors leaving the industry giant Intel to play a little catch-up.

The first thing you may need to know is why the 64 bit processor is such a big deal, because I’m sure you already know new processors seem to hit the market monthly. To answer this we need to take a little trip down memory lane starting with the good ole 386.

The evolution of the PC processor has been one of the fastest growing technologies of all time. The first Microsoft Windows capable processor (at least in my opinion) was the 386. The 386 processor was a fully capable 32 bit processor that was light years ahead of its 16 and 8 bit predecessors. Along with its 32 bits of computing power was 16MHz to 40MHz of blistering speed making this product the start of the processor boom.

The next evolution of the processor was about four years after the 386 hit the market. The 486 was introduced in 1989 to a well received audience of computer enthusiast. The clock speed of the 486 soon reach speeds in excess of 100MHz, but still remained a 32 bit processor at its core. For the next 13 years several other processors would appear; including the Intel Pentium, Pentium MMX, Pentium 2, Pentium 3, Pentium 4 and the newly popular AMD series of K5, K6, K6/2 and Athlon processors, but one constant still remained. Although clock speeds had soared up to nearly 5000MHz all of the resulting processor upgrades were still 32 bit processors.

So, why is the introduction of the 64 bit processor a big deal? Plain a simply put, 13 years of waiting, the 32 bit processor has evolved and evolved and evolved again and now its time to move on. The Athlon 64 achieves incredible processing results above and beyond anything else on the market and even more interesting is the fact that it does it at slower clock speeds, currently topping out at 1600MHz.

The game is on once again with AMD taking the lead by surprise, but I’m sure the retaliation from Intel will be swift along with the entire computer industry. As for the rest of us it will be exciting to see the slew of new hardware and software designed to take advantage of this newly achieved processing power.

For more information on the AMD Athlon 64 visit AMD’s web site and for a more in depth history of the processor be sure to visit Intel’s online museum.

Written by Chad Hembree