i686 on a x64 system, what's the performance difference?

Silverwing · 2011-08-15 21:38:32

Hi all,

I've installed i686 arch on my laptop, as the wireless drivers don't seem to support x64 (kernel panics when attempting to join a encrypted network). How does this impact my performance except for the loss of ram? I have 4gb ram, I understood that i686 only supports up to about 3.5gb. I don't use that much ram regulary so I'm not concerned about that. Are there more noticable differences?

Thanks in advance,
Robert

Edit: oops, i686 indeed

Last edited by Silverwing (2011-08-16 10:27:48)

litemotiv · 2011-08-15 21:41:30

Do you mean i686 perhaps?

stqn · 2011-08-16 19:40:41

Since 64 bit apps use about 20% more RAM than 32 bit apps, you might not really lose RAM under 32 bit (3.5 GB + 20% = 4.2 GB). As far as performance goes, only specific applications benefit from 64 bit. (According to the Phoronix benchmark, x264 encoding is 10% faster on my Core i3 550.)

Grinch · 2011-08-16 21:25:00

Yes, your favourite text editor won't be any faster . Anyways, areas in which I've personally found good performance improvements with 64bit vs 32bit are 3d rendering, emulators, encoding, compression. Typically the improvement is in the 10-20% range, personally I've had the best improvements in emulation, with some arcade games (in Mame) running 25-30% faster in 64bit (most likely due to the increased number of registers available in 64bit). So if you're in to these areas you will likely benefit from going 64bit.

Silverwing · 2011-08-17 11:09:50

Okay, thanks for the replies. I guess I won't be needing it too much. I do play starcraft 2 on my desktop but I'm gonna need Windows for that anyways on my laptop, performance is not going to be good enough on 64 bits either.

stqn · 2011-08-17 12:39:20

Windows games are 32 bit anyway (unless they made a 64 bit build of Starcraft 2?), so I don't think that would help. When Grinch talks about 3D rendering, I believe this means "ray tracing" and not your typical real-time polygonal 3D...

Grinch · 2011-08-17 18:31:38

Yes, I was referring to 3d rendering of images, not 3d rendering in games. I probably should have made that clearer.

Arch Linux

#1 2011-08-15 21:38:32

i686 on a x64 system, what's the performance difference?

#2 2011-08-15 21:41:30

Re: i686 on a x64 system, what's the performance difference?

#3 2011-08-16 19:40:41

Re: i686 on a x64 system, what's the performance difference?

#4 2011-08-16 21:25:00

Re: i686 on a x64 system, what's the performance difference?

#5 2011-08-17 11:09:50

Re: i686 on a x64 system, what's the performance difference?

#6 2011-08-17 12:39:20

Re: i686 on a x64 system, what's the performance difference?

#7 2011-08-17 18:31:38

Re: i686 on a x64 system, what's the performance difference?

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