Re: intel i3 processor
On Tue, Jul 20, 2010 at 05:15:47PM +1000, Dean Hamstead wrote:
> Amd64 is also about more general purposes registers in addition to bigger numbers.
>
> Generally speaking anything will benefit from more registers, and if a problem uses the larger int's (or uses a large number library which uses them) you will experience enormous performance gains.
>
> More addressable memory helps as well.
>
> There is 64bit flash bit adobe dropped it. It can be found if you are happy with the known security problems.
>
> 8 years of amd64 and counting. I've even asked our redhat rep when 32bit i686 will be dropped (not any time soon, gar!)
i386 has no problem doing 64bit intergers and 64 (and even 80) bit
floating point. The difference is in the size of pointers. amd64 has
64bit pointers so each application can use more memory, and it has
more general purpose registers (as you said) which helps the compiler
optimize better, and it uses SSE for floating point (not x87) which is
much faster and more efficient (but drops support for 80 bit floating
point, not that anyone cares).
Of course the fact you can optimize for amd64 instruction set rather
than i486 also makes the compiler happier.
--
Len Sorensen
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