ok, for general use as database number crunching, all other things being equal, is a 64 bit single processor almost twice as fast at computations as a 32 bit

mac

 hine?

what other areas will one see vast improvements in vs 32 bit architecture, assuming everything else is equal or almost equal?

Twice, no. In some instances barely 10% - but in some cases I've seen as high or better than 60%.

The most important thing to understand is that 64bit as opposed to 32bit is the width of the highway in and out, which does not equate to an equal doubling of computational capability. It's also the number of bits that can be acted on at one given slice, but again, because the processor can XOR 64 bits in one pop rather than 32 does not mean that the

net

  throughput is double.

It's faster, no doubt. I just purchased 4 new smoking 64B

mac

 hines and they were OK. Then I put a few Gs of ram in them and they were hot... but here's the interesting thing: I have a Sun 4x320MHz

mac

 hine that holds its own against dual proc 64B

mac

 hines that are running at a clock speed 10 times as fast... so if we take simple math, 2 processors instead of 4, but double the bit path should equal itself out... so a 10x increase in MHz and I should be 10x faster. It just ain't so. Not anywhere near.

Personal experience is that 64B is a nice incremental increase. There are pains in compiling wares for them (at times) so the added shittiness should not be factored out.

64 = 2^6
32 = 2^5

So it's quite obvious.

you can drop the 2 since its same in both cases, which leaves you with
64    6
-- = --
32    5

which is

320 = 192

there for, 64 bit is related to 32 bit, like 320 is related to 192. Which is to say, based on the fact that 320=192, 64bit must equal 32bit.

















Bow before my awesome!

i've just GOT to get my hands on so of the coffee you're swilling man...

It's not the size of the boat, it's the motion in the ocean.

64 bit is worthless unless you've got some software to make use of it.

Generally, as a desktop OS, I found that I got an extra bit of overhead to use when comparing 2 identical processors, except one was 64 bit running 64 bit winXP, and one was 32 bit running WinXP Pro. If you're coding your own stuff and can make use of that extra space and computational bus, more power to you. I am, but haven't really found the need to pay extra for 64 bit dedis, if that's any indication to you of its worth.

  NIce.

I wonder if two 32b computers as part of clusterKnoppix
would fare as well as a single 64b... wondering, how
much would be eaten up in the 'traffic cop' part of
divying (sp?) up the load.... (no bukakke jokes please.)

You first need some computationally intensive stuff before really thinking about the benefits of clustering vs. having a single box with multiple processor architecture. In most applications, the latter is more desirable. That said, the big G uses clustering for a lot of its applications.

2 32b

mac

 hines load balanced with lots of ram will kick the snot out of 1 64b

mac

 hine with lots of ram.

i agree with perk. 2 32bit

mac

 hines of equivalent power will kick the crap out of 1 64bit

mac

 hine.

basically the short version is, 2+2 is calulated at the same exact speed on both 32bit and 64bit, i think. most things we do are perfectly fine to fit into a 32bit model. the 64bit model just allows for larger instructions, meaning bigger math can be handled in half as many chunks. (oversimplification there, but good enough for friday morning) I think most of the web stuff we do is very little advantage with 64, however, the database i assume benefits greatly.

but, I would pick two slightly less capable

mac

 hines over 1 monster, almost every time.

okay, who would win:

The Hulk, or the THING?   

j/k  okay so How about for $hits and giggles..
what would a good benchmark be... sieve?  random number gen?
preg_replace on bajillions of identical strings running as a lamp server?
Pi?  I would LOVE to race Servers.

::snort::

but seriously.  ::Revs Engine::
What is the best benchmark for this kind of thing?

Write a bot to beat the crap out of both rigs with web requests. Try a simple static page, a simple

PHP

  script and a

PHP

  script that hits a DB. For fairness, all 3

mac

 hines should have the DB running locally and they should be identical.

You'll need a load balancer in front of the 2

mac

 hines, or you could use an ip table and route command on a firewall box (IPCop or equiv) to push 50% of packets to each

mac

 hine evenly.

I'd wager that any *single* request will come back faster from the 64B

mac

 hine, but in total, the 2

mac

 hines will beat it under load any day of the week by a solid margin.

All those 32's and 64's.  You forgot the only important set of numbers.

Witness the awesome, ultra-pimped, TRS-80.  Blueprinted, ported and relieved.  Bored 50 thousands over and stroked ever so slightly.  Topped with 4 Stromberg side breathers (progressive linked of course).  Carries a sixer box with a Hurst lever for a 4/11 ender that'll make your heart skip a beat.  Chopped, channeled, tucked and rolled in mink trimmed beaver, with 572 coats of hand-rubbed candy

apple

  red lacquer.  (eat yer heart out Dell)

This baby will play "Aire on a G string" in 60 seconds or less at the drop of any flag, anywhere.

It's 42.

**I'm hip to you jive geeks**

Frigging great dink

unless you are number crunching 64 bit does fuk all for u.
(except for moving memory or comparing string which happens very infrequently).
for non-number crunching only reason why 32 bit faster then 16 bit is because of addressing.
you need 2 registers to address a memory location versus 1.

yeah instead of bothering with 1x64 bit proc, give me 4x32 bit procs. better still, 4 quad core procs. Pretty cheap now too. I can get a chip that cost over 500$ when I built my PC for under 100$ now.