From owner-freebsd-amd64@FreeBSD.ORG Wed Oct 11 21:14:36 2006 Return-Path: X-Original-To: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org Delivered-To: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 64D9C16A412 for ; Wed, 11 Oct 2006 21:14:36 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from vazquez@iqm.unicamp.br) Received: from penelope.iqm.unicamp.br (penelope.iqm.unicamp.br [143.106.51.189]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id EE16143D5C for ; Wed, 11 Oct 2006 21:14:35 +0000 (GMT) (envelope-from vazquez@iqm.unicamp.br) Received: by penelope.iqm.unicamp.br (VMTA, from userid 105) id 1269B91; Wed, 11 Oct 2006 19:14:33 -0200 (EDT) Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2006 19:14:33 -0200 From: Pedro A M Vazquez To: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org Message-ID: <20061011191433.A22753@penelope.iqm.unicamp.br> References: <452C0286.000005.20759@pantene.yandex.ru> <200610111149.k9BBnaxm001133@peedub.jennejohn.org> <20061011205446.GA6548@cons.org> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline User-Agent: Mutt/1.2.5i In-Reply-To: <20061011205446.GA6548@cons.org>; from cracauer@cons.org on Wed, Oct 11, 2006 at 04:54:46PM -0400 Subject: Re: Fw: To amd64 or not to amd64? X-BeenThere: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Porting FreeBSD to the AMD64 platform List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Wed, 11 Oct 2006 21:14:36 -0000 Wed, Oct 11, 2006 at 04:54:46PM -0400, Martin Cracauer wrote: > > > > The only real advantage of 64-bit over 32-bit is that you can put more than > > 4 GB of RAM into the box. If you don't plan to do that, then stick with > > i386. I've been using a dual-core AMD64 for a while now and I've decided to > > stick with i386. > > This is incorrect. 32bit with PAE uses 4GB RAM and more just fine. > > However, userlevel processes are limited to 3 GB virtual memory on 32 > bit FreeBSD, each. > > As for the original question, amd64 complicated things quite a bit as > some people need to keep some 64 bit stuff around, e.g. a firefox > chain for flash (I use a Linux chain anyway) and xine/mplayer for the > 32 bit Windows dlls. Also, no NVidia driver means you might have > lousy quality of the videos in question (although you certainly have > enough CPU power to live without video acceleration). > Well, for scientific computing in my area (Quantum Chemistry) on the other hand, amd64 is a big leap forward and, thanks to gfortran41, some legacy codes have already done the migration from i386 to it and removed several limitations of the 32bit architeture and added 64bit performance at a fraction of the cost it used to be. Pedro