On Sun, Sep 13, 2009 at 07:33:06PM +0500, rihad wrote: > Barney Cordoba wrote: > > > > --- On Sun, 9/13/09, rihad <[email protected]> wrote: > >> What's wrong with 64 bits? > > > > I haven't spent a large portion of my life trying to figure > > it out exactly, but I'd guess that the larger size of the > > structures and code results in fewer cache hits. > > Then what's wrong with also doubling cache sizes?
Increasing the size of the CPU cache not only makes it more expensive to manufacture, but also makes it slightly slower to access. > Besides, apart from other benefits, 64-bit makes every-day big number > arithmetic a single CPU instruction as opposed to several instructions > required on 32-bit CPUs through bignum emulation. True, and if you need to perform a lot of 64-bit arithmetic then the extra register width can indeed be a major win. Most people, on most systems, have very limited need of 64-bit arithmetic. -- <Insert your favourite quote here.> Erik Trulsson [email protected] _______________________________________________ [email protected] mailing list http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-net To unsubscribe, send any mail to "[email protected]"
