Microsoft releases 64-bit Windows operating systems, finally

After an unbearably long time for people waiting for such things, Microsoft finally released 64-bit versions of Windows XP Professional and Windows Server 2003, now cleverly dubbed Windows XP Professional x64 and Windows Server 2003 x64. The new OSs are intended for heavy-duty applications like rendering graphics and video, and to help out on that front they can now address vastly more memory than what was previously possible. You'll see the biggest jump in performance if you have a 64-bit system with more than 4GB of memory, with support for a full 128GB of RAM. We'll let you know how that works out for us after we crawl out from under our stack of plasma TVs.