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Re: Debian AMD64



On Fri, Jan 09, 2009 at 01:30:02PM -0600, Ron Johnson wrote:

> The only benefit which x86-64 has in 64-bit mode is extra registers.  But 
> that only benefits computationally-intensive programs.

Those actually help just about anywwhere. As long as your compiler knows 
how to use them. And it does. Not using registers: reading from memory, 
and this is slower.

OTOH, using larger pointer wastes more memory, and hence a larger chance 
of cache misses. Which is why this benefit is not automatic.

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