i586 designated the original Pentium class machine (whether Intel or AMD equivelant). Since then, improved designs have occurred (Pentium II, III, IV, Athlon, etc.). The i686 refers to these newer "Pentium" class machines. If things are compiled for i686 you might see improved performance. The reason I say might is because there are so many things that factor into performance that compiler optimizations are just a small part. For instance, a 3GHz processor running a slow hardrive or in a machine with limited memory, won't see any benefit from the i686 optimizations. Likewise, a relatively slow processor (i.e. 500mhz) with 128MB of RAM would see a big performance increase going to 256MB of memory, but you probably wouldn't notice a thing with i686 optimizations.All the things I read when doing research on getting Linux running mentioned i586 as the designator for modern "PC-type" chipsets. Looking around in KDE's start menu, I saw the KDE Control Center. I have been using the Mandrake Control Center so I decided to see what the KDE one looked like.
Under the Index tab (with no tree options selected) I see "i686" listed as my machine type.
So what is the difference between these two?
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Now on a fast machine, with lots of memory and a fast harddrive, the i686 optimizations might get your Mozilla browser to load in six seconds instead of eight. If that's worth recompiling everything to you, then go for it, but for most people probably won't see enought of a difference to justify the effort. It's kind of like my mom who people keep trying to convice she needs a new computer (she uses it just for internet and word processing). I tell her that a new computer won't maker her type any faster (word processing), nor will it make her e-mail or web browsing any faster (she uses a 56k modem). It might make things seem snappier, but real work on the system will take about the same amount of time (I should point out that she is 80 years old and her current computer is 450mhz).
In short, in theory, the i686, can let your computer get certain cpu tasks done quicker, but if the cpu is spending most of it's time waiting for you to do something (ie type), then you won't see a major difference.
Not to start a distro war, but on Gentoo's web site (which there distro is compiled based on cpu type, so i686). They have some benchmarks showing how i686 Gentoo out performs Mandrake's stock install (this is in response to an article showing Mandrake out performing Gentoo). The important part is their conclusion which states something like for some tasks the stock Mandrake (i586) is faster and for others Gentoo (i686) is faster.
So again, it depends on how you use your computer as to the benefit you will see. If you are doing some gene resequencing, then yes, i686 optimizations will make a difference. If you are doing high graphic intensive gaming, then, it might make a difference. If you are using it for general word processing, mp3 playing, internet, etc. i686 probably won't have a noticable effect.
Joeb
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