Stefan Viljoen <spamnot@ <removethis>polard.com> wrote:
> Thanks, that's a rational view. It seems like sometimes in here stupid
> people (like me) aren't allowed to ask stupid questions about stuff they
> don't understand, because they promptly get beaten over the head with their
> own question. :)

  I was just asking, out of curiosity, what is it that makes some people
believe that a 64-bit system should/might be twice as fast (or just faster
by some degrees) than an equivalent 32-bit system.

  It just feels that people never stop to think rationally about these
things. "What does it actually mean that it's a 64-bit system?" After
one thinks about that question and comes to a rational answer then one
should/may perhaps realize that there's no logical reason why a 64-bit
system should be twice as fast as a 32-bit system.

  Perhaps one reason might be that the popularization of 64-bit desktop
systems (64-bitness has always been something only popular in obscure
big servers until now) as well as the popularization of dual-core desktop
systems (again, multiple processors have been something only used in
obscure big servers until now) have coincided, and thus people might
get those two things mixed up and think that they are somewhat related
(even though they really aren't; their popularization in desktop systems
at the same time is just coincidence).

  Most people are also probably too young to remember the shift from
16-bit systems to 32-bit systems in Intel-based computers and have never
experienced first-hand the speed difference between a 16-bit binary
compared to a 32-bit binary (if they do the same thing there's basically
no speed difference except when big amounts of memory are needed or if
32-bit arithmetic is a very relevant part of the program's calculations).

> I just thought 64 is twice 32

  Did you stop to think *what* is it that is "twice"? What it could
possibly be?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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