Re: [Swarm-Support] x86_64 and message forwarding

[mgd]

Quoting Paul Johnson <address@hidden>:

> I saw your graph and said to my tech buyer "I want a Mac Pro" and he 
> said "I've got some 64 bit Intel systems here. Will that do as well?"
> 
> What do you think?  Have you got a comparison on an Intel system with 
> Linux x86_64 or some such thing?

It's not that there is anything special about a MacPro, other than that Apple
was fast to market with Xeon 5100 (a.k.a. Woodcrest), and has competitive
pricing compared to players like Dell.  

The older 64 bit Xeon's like the one in that graph are from the Pentium 4 era,
and are easily outperformed by Intel's new chips and by AMD's Opteron/Athlon
series.  It's not enough to just get any x86_64 system if you want the best
available performance.  Get Intel Woodcrest chips or the latest Opterons.

> I've never seen a 64 bit system, have some catching up to do.  Do the 32 
> bit libraries still install and run (as in the old Digital Unix 64 
> systems) or does everything have to be 64 bit native?

Fedora, Novell, Debian, etc. Linux-based systems are still the best choice for
mixed 32/64 or pure 64 bit work.  The compilers and operating system actually
are complete and stable.  While Apple's gcc and libraries will work right
eventually, this kind of software is always a mess in early versions. 
It's really pretty easy to switch to a 64 bit Fedora environment, and keeping 32
bit stuff around soon become more of a nuisance than a convenience.

Marcus