AMD64 vs i386

[Roland Smith]

On Wed, Aug 22, 2007 at 08:58:34AM -0400, Arend P. van der Veen wrote:

> - Will the AMD64 based FreeBSD 6.2 distribution with applications such as 
> Postgresql, Apache, Python, Tomcat and SBCL be able to take advantage of 
> the 64-bit quad processor?

Yes, if you compile them natively on AMD64.

Whether this results in speedups depends on a lot of factors.
Instruction words on AMD64 are longer than i386, so binaries tend to be
bigger, but on the other hand you've got more general purpose registers.

The general consensus seems to be that you _need_ AMD64 if you routinely
run out of address space. In other situations it can be nice to have,
but it depends on the apps and the workload.

I've been using an AMD64 system as my main desktop machine for years
without problems. There are some ports that won't work, but that's
mostly x86 binaries like the flash plugin and nvidia drivers. Both of
which I can well live without.

Roland
-- 
R.F.Smith                                   http://www.xs4all.nl/~rsmith/
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