From owner-freebsd-amd64@FreeBSD.ORG  Fri Oct  8 09:53:33 2010
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Date: Fri, 08 Oct 2010 10:53:31 +0100
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To: freebsd-amd64@freebsd.org, sathler90@gmail.com
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From: Pete French <petefrench@ticketswitch.com>
Cc: 
Subject: Re: i386 vs AMD64 for web/mysql server
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> Today I am running my web and mysql server in FreeBSD i386 and I have
> the chance of moving to AMD64 architecture.
>
> This new server has 4 GB of RAM and 64 bit intel xeon cpus.
>
> Should I move to AMD64 or stick to i386 ?

Yes, move to amd64 - if you are running a webserver and mysql then
this is a very good thing to do.We did this a couple of years ago and
have never looked back. Performance wise, you wont see it 20% faster like
some places claim, but you shoudl see somewhere around 8% - thats what I
got when I made some measurements (with some jobs being about 14% faster).
Also, if you run ZFS, that has been a lot smoother ride for me under amd64!

The only point where I would advise being cautious if if you have
any home-written C code that you are running, as that will need to
be looked at carefully to find any possible 32->64 issues (though
-Wall on the compiler should find quite a few).

-pete.