[gentoo-user] Comparison between 32 bit and 64 bit

[Frank Steinmetzger]

Hey there

As I mentioned in an earlier thread, I switched from 32 to 64 bit after some
convinction work done by the ML and a friend.  In order to justify the switch
for myself, I made some performance comparisons.  

So, in case anyone is interested, here are my results.

The only thing I don't really like is of course the increased RAM usage.
While the old installation took 400 MB of RAM after Login to KDE (Akonadi is
a hog), it now takes 500.  The memory meter now stands always at least at 50%
(3 GB available).  I will have to tune down multitasking a bit.



The following items first display the command excuted (denoted by $), and then
the output of time for the command; first for 32 bit and then 64 bit.

All tests were done on my Core 2 Duo laptop (T7200, max. 2GHz) fixed at 1 GHz
and with 3 GB of RAM.  This is not a theoretical benchmark, but rather about
stuff I usually to do in my every-day computing.  I excluded compiling,
because it involves more than just crunching.

Resulting observation: there seems to be an inherent increase of about 10%
in memory throughput.  I was most surprised by the performance of lilypond
and blender, two computing-intensive applications I tend to use regularly.
I wanted to do a framerate comparison of the Java-based CPU hog Minecraft,
but didn't get around to it.


All the following tasks were done in ramdisk to rule out HDD hindrance.



$ 7z b (7zip's own benchmark function, abridged output)

32 bit                              |   64 bit
===========================================================================
RAM size:    3037 MB                |   RAM size:    3013 MB
RAM usage:    425 MB                |   RAM usage:    425 MB
                                    |  
Dict  Compressing  | Decomp.        |   Dict  Compressing   | Decomp.
      Speed Rating | Speed Rating   |         Speed Rating  | Speed Rating
       KB/s   MIPS |  KB/s   MIPS   |          KB/s   MIPS  |  KB/s   MIPS
                                    |                                      
22:    1487   1446 | 19039   1719   |   22:    1612   1568  | 20974   1893
23:    1443   1470 | 19049   1744   |   23:    1612   1642  | 20758   1900
24:    1499   1612 | 18854   1749   |   24:    1591   1711  | 20292   1883
25:    1489   1700 | 18611   1750   |   25:    1584   1809  | 20030   1884
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Avr:          1557           1740   |                 1682            1890
Tot:          1649                  |                 1786



Various compressions of the High Voltage SID collection version 56
(41356 files, 1416 folders, total dir size 307.676k according to du -s).

Extract:
$ unrar x hvsc.rar
real    0m38.582s   0m38.763s
user    0m36.031s   0m36.190s
sys     0m2.523s    0m2.496s
---> neglibible

Repack witz p7zip, resulting archive size 54.8 MB:
$ 7za a -t7z -m0=lzma -mx=9 -mfb=64 -md=32m -ms=on hvsc.7z C64Music/ > /dev/null
real    3m0.530s    2m41.780s
user    5m22.359s   4m55.810s
sys     2m2.973s    0m3.144s
---> 1/9 faster

Extract from 7z:
$ 7z x hvsc.7z
real    0m24.541s   0m21.437s
user    0m19.302s   0m16.929s
sys     0m4.403s    0m4.472s
---> 1/10 faster

Simple taring of the directory:
$ tar cf hvsc.tar C64Music/
real    0m1.334s    0m1.226s
user    0m0.297s    0m0.304s
sys     0m1.020s    0m0.872s
---> ~1/10 faster

XZing the tar, resulting archive size 54.2 MB:
$ xz -k -z hvsc.tar
real    6m26.383s   4m31.747s
user    6m23.375s   4m30.969s
sys     0m2.733s    0m0.728s
---> ~1/3 faster

XZing with --extreme option (about 4% smaller archive):
$ xz -e -k -z hvsc.tar
real    15m37.732s  10m39.348s
user    15m36.592s  10m38.900s
sys     0m0.977s    0m0.456s
---> ~1/3 faster

Packing in squashfs:
$ mksquashfs C64Music/ hvsc.sqfs
real    0m57.380s   0m44.697s
user    1m45.136s   1m20.377s
sys     0m9.059s    0m6.116s
---> ~1/4 faster



Some memory shuffling:
$ dd if=/dev/urandom of=random bs=1M count=500
real    2m0.306s   1m49.348s
user    0m0.003s   0m0.000s
sys     2m0.292s   1m49.315s
---> 1/12 faster

$ cp random r2
real    0m1.069s   0m0.917s
user    0m0.000s   0m0.004s
sys     0m1.067s   0m0.908s
---> 1/10 faster



Compile Bach's Christmas Oratorio, Tenor part, 16 pages A5:
$ lilypond wo.ly
real    0m31.430s  0m23.737s
user    0m30.711s  0m23.129s
sys     0m0.717s   0m0.592s
---> 1/3 faster

Compile Oratorio de Noël by Saint-Saëns, 4 voices, 16 pages A4:
$ lilypond noel.lyk
real    0m41.575s  0m26.494s
user    0m41.177s  0m25.870s
sys     0m0.390s   0m0.604s
---> >1/3 faster



Optimising a PNG (photo of Orion nebula, 1400x1050 pixel):
$ optipng -o9 Orion.png
real    0m23.491s  0m21.337s
user    0m23.465s  0m21.281s
sys     0m0.027s   0m0.008s
---> 1/10 faster


Encoding a video file to x264 (1280x960, 1600 frames, no sound):
First pass:
$ mencoder bike.flv -ovc x264 -x264encopts bitrate=2000:pass=1 -nosound -o /dev/null
real    1m57.379s  1m44.500s
user    3m48.048s  3m19.728s
sys     0m0.837s   0m0.796s
---> 1/8 faster

Second pass:
$ mencoder bike.flv -ovc x264 -x264encopts bitrate=2000:pass=2 -nosound -o bike.avi
real    4m53.233s  4m15.533s
user    9m41.169s  8m26.660s
sys     0m0.990s   0m1.144s
---> 1/8 faster


Rendering a small test scene in Blender 2.63 (http://www.eofw.org/bench/test.blend):
(file's scene defaults: 800x600, one thread)
win32      2:59
Gentoo32   2:57
Gentoo64   2:09
---> > 1/3 faster
-- 
Gruß | Greetings | Qapla'
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