From owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Thu May 30 21:57:28 2013 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.freebsd.org (mx1.freebsd.org [IPv6:2001:1900:2254:206a::19:1]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id E0F7F926 for ; Thu, 30 May 2013 21:57:28 +0000 (UTC) (envelope-from cswiger@mac.com) Received: from st11p05mm-asmtp002.mac.com (st11p05mm-asmtpout002.mac.com [17.172.108.237]) by mx1.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id BC204D07 for ; Thu, 30 May 2013 21:57:28 +0000 (UTC) Received: from [17.153.29.69] (unknown [17.153.29.69]) by st11p05mm-asmtp002.mac.com (Oracle Communications Messaging Server 7u4-24.01(7.0.4.24.0) 64bit (built Jan 3 2012)) with ESMTPSA id <0MNM00LLOSYBKX90@st11p05mm-asmtp002.mac.com> for freebsd-questions@freebsd.org; Thu, 30 May 2013 21:57:18 +0000 (GMT) X-Proofpoint-Virus-Version: vendor=fsecure engine=2.50.10432:5.10.8626,1.0.431,0.0.0000 definitions=2013-05-30_07:2013-05-30,2013-05-30,1970-01-01 signatures=0 X-Proofpoint-Spam-Details: rule=notspam policy=default score=0 spamscore=0 ipscore=0 suspectscore=0 phishscore=0 bulkscore=0 adultscore=0 classifier=spam adjust=0 reason=mlx scancount=1 engine=6.0.2-1305010000 definitions=main-1305300208 Content-type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii MIME-version: 1.0 (Mac OS X Mail 6.3 \(1503\)) Subject: Re: Should I move to amd64 ? From: Charles Swiger In-reply-to: <20130530171941.GA1208@csbsju.edu> Date: Thu, 30 May 2013 14:57:17 -0700 Content-transfer-encoding: 7bit Message-id: <1492A3B3-0004-429E-9C53-48DC432AD085@mac.com> References: <20130530171941.GA1208@csbsju.edu> To: FreeBSD - X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.1503) X-BeenThere: freebsd-questions@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: User questions List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 30 May 2013 21:57:28 -0000 Hi-- On May 30, 2013, at 10:19 AM, Michael Gass wrote: > I am currently using a 9.1-RELEASE with an i386 install. > The hardware is a core 2 duo with 2 GB of RAM. My video card > is an ati radeon hd 2400 xt. Things work fine. > > Would I gain anything by starting over and doing an AMD64 install > or would that be a bad idea? Would my system perform better, worse, > or the same after the change? I may eventually bring the memory up > to 4GB, but not anytime soon. For machines with less than 4GB of RAM, running 32-bit version is probably wise; 32-bit processes use memory more efficiently compared with 64-bit mode. For some math-intensive workloads like SSL/crypto, audio/video transcoding, and such, there is likely to be significant improvement in 64-bit mode compared with running in 32-bit mode. For most other workloads, you're not likely to notice a difference. > I understand some ports my not work - like WINE - but I do not use > WINE. Would there be other problems? Nope, or at least not in general; AMD64 is very stable nowadays. Regards, -- -Chuck