Date: Mon, 24 Nov 2008 12:39:41 -0800 From: Chris Maness <chris@chrismaness.com> To: Roland Smith <rsmith@xs4all.nl> Cc: Wojciech Puchar <wojtek@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl>, freebsd-questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: Xeon Quad Core (Was: Server Freezing Solid) Message-ID: <492B110D.4030701@chrismaness.com> In-Reply-To: <20081124200755.GA3659@slackbox.xs4all.nl> References: <b2e0a4330811110642k688c2c9aq9fbb9832f5382c53@mail.gmail.com> <BMEDLGAENEKCJFGODFOCCEPNCFAA.tedm@toybox.placo.com> <20081112100640.GA21560@icarus.home.lan> <492AF564.5050605@chrismaness.com> <20081124200044.A1528@wojtek.tensor.gdynia.pl> <492B0275.6000300@chrismaness.com> <20081124200755.GA3659@slackbox.xs4all.nl>
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Roland Smith wrote: > On Mon, Nov 24, 2008 at 11:37:25AM -0800, Chris Maness wrote: > >> Wojciech Puchar wrote: >> >>>> Since a Xeon Quad Core is a 64bit processor, would it work ok with >>>> FreeBSD? Or would the adm64 release be better for that chip? >>>> >>> don't be suggested by "amd" in port name. it's for AMD64-compatible >>> processor, for example your xeon >>> >> Sorry, I wasn't very clear. I am currently running FreeBSD 7.0 the >> regular i386 release. I would prefer to keep it that way if migration >> to the 64bit release would mean rebuilding from scratch >> > > You'll have to remove and re-install all ports to make them 64-bits as well. > > >> (there is >> probably an easier way to convert an i386 release to a amd64 release). >> > > Not really. You could do a cross-build to another partition, but you'd > have to have one available. > > >> Another poster seemed to indicate that the i386 release would run just >> fine on a quad core chip. >> > > It should. > > >> Would there be a major performance gain with amd64 over that of the i386 >> build on a Xeon Quad Core? >> > > It will depend on your workload. If your machines were strapped fo > address space on i386, switching to amd64 (with enough RAM) will help. > > In "long" (64-bit) mode, amd64 compatible CPUs have more registers > available, so that will speed up things. On the other hand, pointers and > longs are 64-bit numbers instead of 32-bit, which will make the code > somewhat larger. Run some benchmarks that are relevant for you on i386 > and re-run them after you've switched to amd64 to know for sure. > > I've been running amd64 since 5.4 on both Athlon64 and recently Core 2 > Quad without problems. > > Roland > Thanks guys. It is not a high load server, so I think sticking to i386 sounds like my best option. Chris
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