[Novalug] 32-bit || 64-bit
John Franklin
franklin@elfie.org
Sat May 19 23:52:26 EDT 2007
On May 16, 2007, at 6:33 PM, Subba Rao wrote:
> Hello everyone,
>
> I purchased a laptop (used) with the following processor on it:
>
> Intel® Core™ 2 Duo T7200 (2.00GHz, 4MB L2 Cache, 667MHz FSB)
>
> The system had 32-bit Vista on it. Now I want to install Linux on
> it. I don't know the big difference in performance of a 32-bit vs
> 64-bit OS. What I know is that you could have more acres of memory
> on 64-bit system.
>
> Before I download Linux, is this processor a 32-bit OR 64-bit
> processor? The tech support (Dell) person says that Intel
> processors (for laptops) have 64-bit emulator....blah, blah, blah.
> Like I am not confused enough by now...:-)
>
> If there is any hardware geek (positive compliment) here, could you
> please enlighten the absolute mortals about the processors?
> Particularly the one I have now.
>
> Thanks for any help.
In addition to the 64-bit memory space, there are a few performance
enhancements that come with 64-bit. Registers are larger, and IIRC
there are a couple extra registers and CPU instructions, too.
However, pointers are now 8 bytes instead of 4 bytes, so there is a
bit more data to push around. For most apps, the larger pointers are
a fraction of the data the pointers reference, but for certain apps
32-bit still wins (think large indexes built of pointers.)
Unless you want to get 64-bit street cred, stick with 32-bit. NDIS
wrappers for wireless drivers are easier to work with in 32-bit,
Flash and the Sun Java plug-in for Firefox are still 32-bit only.
There are ways to shim them in to a 64-bit system, but it's never as
easy as with 32-bit.
jf
--
John Franklin
franklin@elfie.org
ICBM: 38º 56' 32.6"N 77º 24' 47.7"W Z+62m
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