Ubuntu 11.04: i686 vs. i686 PAE vs. x86_64

The x264 H.264 video encoding performance was also significantly better in a 64-bit world: up by 15% on the Core 2 Duo notebook and 16% for the Core i7.

Ogg encoding also did the best with an x86_64 kernel while switching to the PAE kernel only brought a small boost for the Core i7 notebook.

GraphicsMagick also loved the 64-bit environment. On the Core i7 Sandy Bridge mobile system the PAE kernel yielded a 7% improvement while the x86_64 kernel was 39% faster than the i686 non-PAE kernel.