> You'll only notice a speed increase with applications that need to
> caculate very large numbers, like encryption keys and certain
> scientific apps. Everything else will basically run just as fast in
> 32-bit mode as it will in 64-bit. There are exceptions in certain
> media encoders that don't have hardware optimizations for 64-bit, that
> may actually run faster as 32-bit apps.
Well, the registers are not only twice longer, but there is twice as much of
them as in 32-bit. And THIS is what optimising compilers are fond of. More
registers mean less in-memory temporary variables, which in turn means less
memory accesses. This gives speed improvement. For SMP systems it gives huge
difference - as the memory is shared between CPUs and they must fight for it.
I have an amd64 system for over a year (or is it 2-yrs?). I had some glitches:
* Need to use binary 32-bit firefox to have flash - still have problems with
some fonts not appearing in flash
* Need to use 32-bit java to make 32-bit OpenOffice happy
* Some forensic packages won't compile on 64-bit due to bad coding techniques
But besides that - my AMD64 3000+ just rocks. I had definitely much more
problems with 64-bit XP, but since getting rid of it (XP not problems) I am
fully 64-bit positive :D
That's what I just bought. A Sempron64 3000+. So, if there isn't an
amd64 package available, I can always use x86? Does portage make it
easy to do this?
- Grant
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