Our Last Time Benchmarking Ubuntu 32-bit vs. 64-bit

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Our Last Time Benchmarking Ubuntu 32-bit vs. 64-bit

With Ubuntu 17.10 discontinuing the 32-bit desktop ISOs, here is the last time it makes sense comparing the Ubuntu 32-bit (i686) versus x86_64 performance.

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=25287

[ArchFanatic]

Good job making finally the right decision and don't waste your precious time with ancient crap.

Off topic:
It is a shame that one f*cking pile of crap software named Steam backed up by large company IS STILL 32 BIT ONLY on linux. People should wake up and live in the present not in the 90s.

[Azrael5]

there is no longer reason for 32bit operating systems and or 32bit programs. It's a waste of time for developers.

[Adarion]

While I agree on the matter that 32bit x86 only software is a bit of a burden (Steam, formerly browser plugins), x86_32 is still having a lot of machines out there, machines, that are good enough for the job. And in some cases they are power efficient enough to call it sustainable if these boards stay in service[*]. Use cases where 512... 1024 MiB RAM is just enough, But of course we want to run a patched software stack on them!
Moreover in terms of performance differences: the question is how many optimizations has the used Ubuntu 32 seen, the compiler flags used etc. and how many are in Ubuntu 64? I highly doubt it's all the sheer 32/64 difference. In the beginning, when AMD introduced the amd64 arch, it was clear that it is 100% backward compatible (which was an awesome move) and that performance difference should be marginal.

Glad to be on Gentoo, again, where I have the choice to still run my older machines as well as my modern architectures with >4 GiB RAM.[*] E.g. the Geode series (Cyrix mediagx, NS, AMD GX/LX), some VIA C3, C7,... maybe Celerons, Atoms. I'm not talking about P4 heating plates.

[cb88]

You may see somewhat different results on lower end machines, that merely happen to have 64bit support but were never sold as such. Or on machines with single channel memory. not all 64bit machines have all the same extensions or performance built into those extensions (ie it may have a slower SIMD unit).

[duby229]

Also worth pointing out, GUI interfaces are not that CPU intensive. While I fully agree we all should be on a 64bit OS by now, there really isn't a point in compiling every program to 64bits. Until Steam starts consuming more than 4gigs of RAM or it starts hitting the CPU hard, it really doesn't need to be 64bits.

[torsionbar28]

Also worth pointing out, GUI interfaces are not that CPU intensive. While I fully agree we all should be on a 64bit OS by now, there really isn't a point in compiling every program to 64bits. Until Steam starts consuming more than 4gigs of RAM or it starts hitting the CPU hard, it really doesn't need to be 64bits.

There's something to be said for consistency though. Having to maintain a parallel set of 32 bit libraries, just for running 32 bit binaries, is annoying. Yes compiling everything to 64 bits takes more memory, but RAM is so cheap these days its negligible. I say it's time to dump 32 bit for mainstream desktop and server.

[R41N3R]

It is finally the right decision to let 64 bit die on major distributions... If somebody really need something special, then there are enough distributions for the old machines.
Yes, Valve really should provide 64 bit builds of the steam client, I mean how hard can it be? It is not like Valve doesn't have the money or resources. Just provide a simple 64 bit client!

[torsionbar28]

Lets not forget to say "Thanks AMD!" for bringing 64 bits to the x86 world. If it were up to intel, x86 would be 32 bit only.

[Luke_Wolf]

Also worth pointing out, GUI interfaces are not that CPU intensive. While I fully agree we all should be on a 64bit OS by now, there really isn't a point in compiling every program to 64bits. Until Steam starts consuming more than 4gigs of RAM or it starts hitting the CPU hard, it really doesn't need to be 64bits.

At the same time there isn't really a point to forcing everyone to bring in a 32-bit userspace when anyone who is going to be gaming (as implied by running Steam) should have hardware that isn't 11+ years old to be able to run any non-casual modern game and thus by default will have a 64-bit computer. Also I've found with numerous software including things like firefox that running 32-bit binaries on a 64-bit OS tends to expose bugs that the 64-bit builds don't have for whatever reason.

It would also signal to game developers to only do 64-bit builds as well, which they should be but haven't been.