Re: Intel Atom Processor
Vincent Lefevre put forth on 2/17/2010 6:21 AM:
> On 2010-02-16 09:52:06 -0600, Stan Hoeppner wrote:
>> As a bonus, due to various architectural reasons I won't delve into,
>> 32bit binaries will usually run slightly faster than the 64 bit
>> cousins, and they'll take up a little bit less disk space.
>
> No, this depends on the application (and "usually" doesn't mean very
> much because applications will depend on what the machine is used
> for). And some people would completely disagree with you, e.g.:
Vincent, you're quoting me out of context. Apparently you haven't read the
entire thread. Or you're misquoting me intentionally. I clearly stated that my
comments pertained to a certain application class on this platform.
> http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_32_pae&num=1
These benchmarks are irrelevant to the current discussion. They are on a
capable dual core Intel Core Processor, and the application mix is not the same
as that of an average Atom user.
> There's another point is favor of amd64: floating-point arithmetic.
> As SSE is used by default on amd64, FP arithmetic is much cleaner
> there in practice.
We all know this already (or at least should). However, again, it's irrelevant
to _this_ thread. This thread, and my comments, deal with Atom based systems
with less than 2GB of RAM. This thread is not about 32bit vs 64bit binary
performance in general. It's about 32bit vs 64bit binary performance on the
Atom processor and the bulk of applications that users will run on such a
platform daily, which basically includes only these two apps:
1. Web brower
2. Email client
x86-64 optimizations and performance enhancements will rarely be taken advantage
of for this class of machine. FP (SSE/SSE2) isn't going to make a lick of
difference. I didn't state 32bit software is better across the board on x64-64
CPUs. I said in _this_ case, for the vast majority of users, 32bit software
will have a slight performance advantage, and I'm correct.
The vast majority of Atom chips shipped reside in netbooks. The vast majority
of netbook owners will never have over 2GB ram and will never run FP heavy
applications, or any application mix where a 64bit binary pay additional dividends.
Take another stab at misquoting me and listing an irrelevant test case for
irrelevant comparison.
--
Stan
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