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Performance of 64-bit vs. 32-bit Windows Dual Core

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the more-bits-about-bits dept.

mikemuch writes "ExtremeTech's Loyd Case has done extensive testing on the same dual-core Athlon X2 4800+ system to explore performance differences between Windows XP Professional x64 and good ole Win32. The biggest hurdle is getting the right drivers. There are a few performance surprises, particularly in 3D games."

6 of 319 comments (clear)

  1. Biggest Benefit by dsginter · · Score: 5, Funny

    The spyware can all be run on one of the cores while the other can be used to get work done. I'm getting one for my father-in-law.

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    More
  2. After reading the benchmarks... by vandy1 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I can only conclude that they made no attempt to use the extra registers. Of *course* an f'ing 32-bit system will outpace a 64-bit system; Why do you think most Solaris apps are still 32-bit?

    The reason why x86-64 is a win is because there are more registers as well. This allows compilers to do a better job.

  3. Standard phallacy by vlad_petric · · Score: 5, Interesting
    The main performance gain from going to x86-64 does not come from larger operands and larger addressing space. It comes from a cleaned-up instruction set architecture and, most importantly, from a larger set of registers. x86-64 has 16 general-purpose registers whereas x86-32 arguably has about 7 GPRs. For x86-32, a compiler generally allocates 2 or at most 3 registers to variables. For x86-64, it can utilize ~12. This greatly reduces the number of loads and stores to the stack. The performance gain comes from the fact that it's much faster to communicate via a register than through memory.

    BTW, I don't know about windoze, but in the Linux world going from 32 bits to 64 bits almost always seems to produce a performance gain of 10->20%. I personally tried a simulator I'm using with 64 bits (recompiled with gcc), and got a speedup of 12%.

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    The Raven

    1. Re:Standard phallacy by Elwood+P+Dowd · · Score: 5, Funny

      "phallacy"? Is that like when you say it's 7 inches but you know damn well it's 5?

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      There are no trails. There are no trees out here.
  4. Re:Better solution than Linux? by nukem996 · · Score: 5, Informative

    Im on a 64bit system now. Every open source app that I use has been ported to 64bit. The few 32bit apps that I have run fine in a 64bit environment, all I have to do is make sure I have 32bit libs availible for them. Recent versions of gcc and glibc offer the ablity to do this without any trouble at all. The User Land 32bit was when the AMD64 CPU first came out but things have changed.

  5. Microsoft recommends other operating systems by serano · · Score: 5, Funny

    A few months ago I bought a new AMD 64-bit processor and mother board. I installed XP Professional 64-bit edition, but the wireless MS mouse and keyboard I had wouldn't work. I couldn't find 64-bit drivers anywhere on MS's site, so I gave them a call. The person on the phone told me the keyboard and mouse wouldn't work with XP 64 and suggested I try another operating system. I asked if she recommmended Red Hat or Gentoo, but she just said, "No comment. Is there anything I can help you with?"