> -----Original Message----- > From: Mark Kirkwood [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Friday, February 13, 2004 5:30 PM > To: Andrew Sullivan > Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Subject: Re: [GENERAL] Quad Xeon vs. Dual Itanium > > > Wouldn't you only care about 64-bit Postgres if you wanted to make > shared_buffers bigger than 4G? > > Various other posters have commented about the sweet-spot for > shared_buffers being ~ 100-200M (or thereabouts). > > So it seems to me that there is nothing to be gained using a 64-bit > binary with the current or previous Pg releases. However, > with the new > cache replacement system being used in 7.5devel, the > situation *may* be > different (wonder if anyone has tried this out yet?).
Where 64 bits matters (in general -- not restricted to PG database systems): Size of the database is huge (e.g. every toll paid in New Jersey in the last 5 years) Available memory is huge (e.g. you buy a machine with 24 gigs of ram) Data bus bandwidth is huge (e.g. You buy an 8-way Opteron with 40 GB/sec bandwidth) The 32 bit machines cannot compete in these arenas. ---------------------------(end of broadcast)--------------------------- TIP 9: the planner will ignore your desire to choose an index scan if your joining column's datatypes do not match