Athlon64 and 32 bit linux - teh snAppy?

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 1:58 am

How many people here use athlon64s in 32 bit configs and are happy with the performance? I'm looking at doing a system upgrade that will require pci express x4, and can't find an intel board that doesn't get tons of bad reviews. My other option is an athlon64, but I've also read varied reports about how good they are in 32 bit mode, as well as many reports of major issues running in 64 bit mode. I assume that a lot of this has been ironed out over the last couple years, but figured you guys might have some feedback.

johnnywtllts · Post by **johnnywtllts** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 5:05 am

I didn't get real deep into the stats but can say that I didn't have any trouble other than the Flash issue. Fedora was also the only 64 bit distro that actually ran out of the box for me (tried Ubuntu 64, Suse 64 - but could've just been my setup: MSI K8T, etc.).

Post by **Patrick** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 5:50 am

I haven't had any major issues with Kubuntu for AMD64. Almost all the applications I use have packages available in the repositories. There were a handful of apps that run in 32 bit emulation. Firefox, Opera, Castpodder and Demorecorder. They all work fine. The only application that's really buggy is Google Earth which is compiled in 64 bit mode. It looks like this:

Other than that I'm pretty happy.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 6:37 am

AMD64's does 32-bit just fine, you don't HAVE to use a 64-bit OS on it, if you did, what would all the Windows wankers do? The 64-bit XP sucks ass and 32-bit is the only option where driver support is broad enough to make it feasible.

schotty · Post by **schotty** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 7:20 am

Tsuroerusu wrote:AMD64's does 32-bit just fine, you don't HAVE to use a 64-bit OS on it, if you did, what would all the Windows wankers do? The 64-bit XP sucks ass and 32-bit is the only option where driver support is broad enough to make it feasible.

come on ... sucks ass? Thats giving it a bit too much credit. You have used it havent you? Ughh..... Atleast 64-bit linux actually supports most hardware that XP64 wont

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 10:56 am

Considering that Arch is my distro of choice, and they don't really have an official 64 bit version, I'd probably be going the 32 bit route. My question is really how well do these chips perform as 32 bit chips. Is a 3700+ going to be about the same speed as a 32 bit athlon 3200?

Buying stuff for a computer right now is kind of frustrating. You're either stuck buying stuff that you *know* is being EOLed (semprons, p4s) or you're buying new technology that, in many cases, can't really even be fully used at this point (64 bit, dual core, etc). I'd go with a pentium D if a) there weren't so many reports of heat issues, and b) so many reports of all the MOBOs I've been looking at sucking horribly. The crux of the biscuit here is that I *must* have pci express x4 - that kind of narrows down my other choices considerably.

Tsuroerusu · Post by **Tsuroerusu** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 12:20 pm

Snarkout wrote:Considering that Arch is my distro of choice, and they don't really have an official 64 bit version, I'd probably be going the 32 bit route. My question is really how well do these chips perform as 32 bit chips. Is a 3700+ going to be about the same speed as a 32 bit athlon 3200?

Pretty much just as fast as in 64-bit mode, it's only a slight speed increase, in Windows it's not really noticeable, in Linux it is a little, but not a lot.

Snarkout wrote:Buying stuff for a computer right now is kind of frustrating. You're either stuck buying stuff that you *know* is being EOLed (semprons, p4s) or you're buying new technology that, in many cases, can't really even be fully used at this point (64 bit, dual core, etc).

I wouldn't agree with that, 64-bit is absolutely usable, you will only have some slight issues with browser plugins and stuff, but similar issues you will have on Windows as well, with some apps not working well. Dual core is also very much usable, you just need to use an SMP-enabled kernel.

Snarkout wrote:I'd go with a pentium D if a) there weren't so many reports of heat issues, and b) so many reports of all the MOBOs I've been looking at sucking horribly. The crux of the biscuit here is that I *must* have pci express x4 - that kind of narrows down my other choices considerably.

Pentium D is just a dual-core Pentium 4 Prescott chip, and Prescott SUCKS, seriously, those are very inefficient, poorly designed, and generally just a really frustrating CPU.

Just get an AMD X2 AM2 CPU, with a motherboard that uses the nForce5 or VIA chipset (VIA has been good to the free software community as far as I know, they have GPLed drivers and stuff), that will work quite well, and this is quite new hardware, especially the VIA should work well.
Example of a non-Opteron motherboard I'd like right now: http://www.asus.com/products4.aspx?l1=3 ... odelmenu=1

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Fri Sep 15, 2006 4:49 pm

What I meant is that most software doesn't really take full advantage of either dual core or 64-bitness at this point.

I may end up going socket 939 because I'd be able to reuse parts I already own, and because the mobos I'm looking at are considerably cheaper than the similar am2 ones I've looked at. Married with kids = less money to blow on geekery, so every little bit helps. I dunno, though, I may just go nuts and then not buy any toys at all for a year. A lot of it depends on what SWMBO has to say about it. This is at least 65% fantasy right now, anyhow.

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Sat Sep 16, 2006 1:45 pm

Huh - it turns out I'm an idiot. It looks like the pci-express x4 card I was looking at will fit into a x16 just fine. However, in the meantime I've found several boards that will fit my existing pci-x card that have the other options I want as well.

The remaining question is do I go whole hog and get one that supports dual opteron, or go the thrifty route and just opt for a p4 or similar...

Gomer_X · Post by **Gomer_X** » Mon Sep 18, 2006 8:13 am

Snarkout wrote:The crux of the biscuit here ...

You have proven yourself to be even cooler than I thought.

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Tue Sep 19, 2006 7:35 am

Great minds, great music...

snarkout · Post by **snarkout** » Wed Sep 20, 2006 8:19 pm

Well, I went for the pentium D option. It seemed like the least expensive realistic option. Yes, I drooled over dual opterons, but I really didn't have 2k to drop on a box. 2 kids and 3 dogs = no 5t00p1d 3xp3n51v3 mobo and procs.