To explain, keep in mind that optimisation and chost are two different things.
i386 is a "lowest common denominator" instruction set that will run on most 386 and above x86 processors. i4/5/686 adds few specialised instructions and I believe the compiler is able to use them to produce faster code in some cases. The downside is the loss of compatibility - apparent if you switch processors. Is the system faster - my tests (done ages ago now) say yes, but not by much and its highly dependent on the actual code/data in use at the time. Generally, you will get more gain by smarter configuration, better software etc. Thats not to say optimised CFLAGS and compiler choices wont give a useful speedup, especially when crunching data. It just wont turn a 667Mhz P3 into the equivalent 1G P3 - I know I recently tried to "get a little more" out of one :) BillK On Wed, 2005-11-23 at 21:24 -0400, Robin wrote: > > > Wouldn't leaving the CHOST at > > > "i386-pc-linux-gnu" build unoptimized binaries? > > > > No. > > > > Alexander Skwar > > Thanks for that. My CHOST flag is set to i386-pc-linux-gnu even though > it is not. Just a piece of mind I guess not building unoptimized > binaries. > -- gentoo-user@gentoo.org mailing list
