Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2006 08:44:10 -0400 From: "Gibson, Jasen \(GE Indust, ConsInd, consultant\)" <jasen.gibson@ge.com> To: <freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org>, <alecn2002@yandex.ru> Subject: RE: To amd64 or not to amd64? Message-ID: <11A5C7FB9726324A8ACCF5C0922195E91956C6@LOUMLVEM05.e2k.ad.ge.com> In-Reply-To: <20061011120033.C8E1F16A51C@hub.freebsd.org>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
-----Original Message----- >Well, probably this question was discussed here many times, but the = last thread about "transiting from i386 to >amd64" dated year 2004, so it's very posible things change since that = time... > >I've just upgraded my home comp from AMD Sempron to Athlon64. Only CPU = upgrade, nothing else. > >I've booted my old good i386-arched FreeBSD 6.1 and it looks like it = works fine. >The question is: will I have any benefits if I'll move to amd64 system, = or it's safer and better to stay with i386 >arch? > >About 50% of time my children use it to watch movies (DVD, DivX, = MPEG-4). >From the rest I use it for working at home (RadRails, KDevelop, a lot = of C/C++ compilation), and my wife use it to >access Internet and use = OpenOffice. > >Problem-free operation and stability have precedense for me over system = speed. >Even more detail: AFAIK there is no amd64 NVidia driver for direct = rendering available, is it correct? > >And one side question: will I benefit if I move to amd64 system and = install gcc-4.1, over current gcc-3.4.4 that=20 >came with system? >And the same - if I'll stay in i386 mode but upgrade to gcc-4.1? >I mean here both compilation speed and efficiency of generated code. I can't answer all of your specific questions, as I do not use FreeBSD = as a desktop system, but I can tell you that the current release of the = amd64 port is just as stable as the i386 for me. I switched from an AthlonMP system to an Opteron platform for a = production server. I ran both the 32-bit and 64-bit ports on the new = system during the testing phase, and they pretty much seemed identical = in terms of stability. I didn't benchmark to see if there was much = performance difference, but I doubt that there was. I'm using the = server for Apache and Mysql. The other main benefit besides the 4GB limit is that the 64-bit = extensions give you more register space, which could significantly speed = up computational-heavy applications. Things like webbrowsers or = OpenOffice, not so much. I'd imagine a compiler would fit that category = though. There is no amd64 nVidia driver yet, which is annoying. They released = one for Linux, just not FreeBSD yet. If that's important, then i386 may = be the best bet for you.
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?11A5C7FB9726324A8ACCF5C0922195E91956C6>