On Jan 24, 07 15:33:42 -0800, Linda Walsh wrote:
> I have an Intel cpu / 64-bit extensions on a machine with 4G of
> memory.
>
> Just want some confirmation (or not)...it seems like i386 would
> currently be my best choice: all memory is accessible, no program I am
> running needs >2G addr space, 32-bit programs execute faster and
> will likely be smaller than the equivalent 64-bit programs (and
> libraries).
With i386 you will only be able to access 3 or 3.5GB of your memory. At
least half a megabyte will be wasted. Background: The PCI cards have to
be mapped into the available 32bit address space.
64-bit programs actually execute faster than 32-bit, but need more
memory (all pointers have double size). This is counterintuitive, but
can be explained: the x86_64 architecture has more free registers
available than i586. Only programs that trash memory a lot (inlcuding
lots of pointers) might run slower due to higher memory throughput.
You can run i586 programs on a x86_64 kernel, in fact this is very much
advised for firefox (stabiliy, plugins) and video players (due to
win32codecs). AFAIK openoffice isn't even ported to x86_64 yet. Other
ports are not really clean yet, so the i586 binaries are often more
stable.
So:
Downside for x86_64: stability, complexity (mixed architecture setup),
more memory needed
Upside for x86_64: faster, more memory available
HTH
Matthias
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