Re: Opinion question (Core2 Duo)
Zaq Rizer wrote:
I have an Intel Core2 Duo arriving in the mail in a couple of days,
and I read online that these processors can run in either 32bit or
64bit mode (just like Athlons can).
Thing is, the 32bit chroot and ia32-compatibility libraries, are, imo,
a total mess and a real pain in the rear to deal with on a daily basis.
But usually, no need to deal with it. Almost all software is
available 64-bit.
The main problems seems to be some netscape plugins and wine.
(Java works 64-bit in konqueror, adobe acrobat has good 64-bit
alternatives, so I don't count those.)
I do run a 32-bit program in 32-bit wine - but that was a "set up hassle
once
and then it just works forever" case.
I'm looking for people's opinions on whether I should stick with
debian-amd64, or do a reinstall of debian from the main branch (32bit)?
What, truly, are the real performance differences? Simply support for
4+G of ram, or something else?
The processor also uses 16 registers in 64-bit modes, opposed to only
8 in 32-bit mode. (Working with registers is _much_ faster than
accessing memory, but as you see, there aren't many of them.)
If the inner loop of some time-consuming operation need more than
8 registers but less than 16, then you get a nice noticeable speedup
from using 64-bit mode.
Of course, any usage that actually do integer math on quantities
bigger than 32 bit also speeds up noticeably. Graphichs operations
not done by the graphichs adapter itself will also be in this category.
My experimental sudoku solving program is 3x faster on
a 1.8GHz 64-bit opteron, than on a 2.4GHz 32-bit pentium. In this case,
a slow 64-bit processor beats a faster 32-bit processor 3x.
Helge Hafting
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