64bit..... hogwash??

Q

QwertyJuan

[H]F Junkie
Joined
Aug 17, 2000
Messages
11,285
So here goes.... for the last 3 months'ish' I have been NAUSEATED with "64bit" this, and "64bit" that... specifically comments concerning the Apple iPhone 5s.

I have been "trolling" message boards in this length of time swearing up and down that the speed increases that Anand found in his testing all boil down to a significantly faster chip... NOT for the fact that it's 64bit.

I have been saying I was going to do it... and I have FINALLY got some testing done.

From the offset... perhaps iOS scales better from 32bit to 64bit than Windows 7 does... but I doubt it very much.

Regardless... I haven't posted the video yet, but I actually took TWO IDENTICAL machines and loaded up Win7 32bit on one and Win7 64bit on the other.

AMD 250 X2 @ 3.0Ghz
2GB DDR 667Mhz Ram
500GB WD Blue 7200RPM
350Watt Enermax PSU

These are old "spare" machines I had here at work that have only been used a few hours each. So practically brand new. I am also guessing probably as fast as a new "budget" laptop.

And then I tested them... both machines had IDENTICAL software installed on them... ALL Windows Updates as well as using Ninite to make sure everything was the same.

My conclusions?

Bootup - 3-5 seconds faster on the 32bit
Shutdown - 2-3 seconds faster on 32bit

LOAD UP TIMES
Firefox - No difference
Opera - 2-3 seconds faster on the 32bit
Chrome - No difference
Gimp - No difference
Google Earth - 1-2 seconds faster on 64bit
LibreOffice - 1 sec faster on 64bit

After closing these programs and reopening them however, all differences were non-existent. The 1-3 seconds discrepancies weren't there.

The only thing that was consistent was the faster shutdown/startup/reboot times of the 32bit machine.

So.... just as I suspected(as most geeks would) is that 64bit on a phone with less than 4gb of ram is bascially like the perverbial "tits on a bull" :)

Good for bragging rights, but unless you are running apps that NEED more than 4gb of ram OR you are multitasking and NEED more than 4gb of ram, 32bit is just as fast as 64bit in real-life situations.

*EDIT* General surfing/Gmail/Etc... there was also no difference even though I failed to mention that at first.
 
Last edited:
Subscribed. I'm curious to the responses that this thread will receive
 
OP put a lot of work into creating a thread that'll be irresistible bait to the troll underground here on [H].

William Shatner's classic line from Saturday Night Live seems appropriate: "Get a life!!!!!"
 
Tyler-Durden said:
OP put a lot of work into creating a thread that'll be irresistible bait to the troll underground here on [H].

William Shatner's classic line from Saturday Night Live seems appropriate: "Get a life!!!!!"
Click to expand...

I didn't just put a lot of work into a thread... I actually put a lot of work into this period. Probably 5-6 hours of my time. I had to prove to myself that 32bit and 64bit don't make a difference whatsoever for the average user. And I did just that. ;)
 
QwertyJuan said:
I didn't just put a lot of work into a thread... I actually put a lot of work into this period. Probably 5-6 hours of my time. I had to prove to myself that 32bit and 64bit don't make a difference whatsoever for the average user. And I did just that. ;)
Click to expand...
And, in doing so, you proved the wisdom of Shatner's comment.
 
For speed purposes, anyone saying 64 bit is the reason for for the increase in speed (not double fpus..) needs to get back to the books. But the 64 bit addressing has other benefits then just increased memory usage.
 
Trimlock said:
For speed purposes, anyone saying 64 bit is the reason for for the increase in speed (not double fpus..) needs to get back to the books. But the 64 bit addressing has other benefits then just increased memory usage.
Click to expand...

I agree 100%... however for loading up programs and light usage, absolutely no difference in speed whatsoever (at least as far as Win7 goes) - but this is exactly what I was expecting before I even started. I just had to prove it to myself.
 
It's pretty easy to completely shoot down this test, I'm afraid.

You're not testing 64-bit performance at all. Loading times are primarily tests of storage and memory speeds, not number-crunching. Fire up 64-bit native games, render a video in a 64-bit editor, compile code -- anything that could take advantage of the extra computational power. But do it with more than 2GB of RAM, because modern, performance-intensive desktop software will choke on that little memory, whether the OS is 32- or 64-bit.

You're right in that 64-bit by itself isn't an advantage for the iPhone 5s, though. Really, Apple's big edge is the ARMv8 architecture. There's a lot of under-the-hood improvements, and 64-bit is just coming along for the ride. However, that still means that Apple and developers can start writing 64-bit apps right away. It's potentially a big advantage in the long run; iOS will be fully ready for 64-bit when it's essential, and you won't need to own a cutting-edge phone when the switch happens.
 
Aurelius said:
It's pretty easy to completely shoot down this test, I'm afraid.

You're not testing 64-bit performance at all. Loading times are primarily tests of storage and memory speeds, not number-crunching. Fire up 64-bit native games, render a video in a 64-bit editor, compile code -- anything that could take advantage of the extra computational power. But do it with more than 2GB of RAM, because modern, performance-intensive desktop software will choke on that little memory, whether the OS is 32- or 64-bit.

You're right in that 64-bit by itself isn't an advantage for the iPhone 5s, though. Really, Apple's big edge is the ARMv8 architecture. There's a lot of under-the-hood improvements, and 64-bit is just coming along for the ride. However, that still means that Apple and developers can start writing 64-bit apps right away. It's potentially a big advantage in the long run; iOS will be fully ready for 64-bit when it's essential, and you won't need to own a cutting-edge phone when the switch happens.
Click to expand...

I went with 2GB of ram because of the fact that the iPhone only has 1GB... and did "average" things that most people will be doing with a computer(or checking email/twittering/snapchatting on their iPhone)

And I agree 100% that the iPhone's new CPU is WAAAAY faster than the old one... Anand already proved that. However, I don't feel it's got anything to do with the fact that it's 64bit, and EVERYTHING to do with the fact that it's a more powerful chip.
 
You're testing a 64-bit operating system that exhibits overheads in running 32-bit applications. Specifically, 32-bit applications on 64-bit versions of Windows load extra resources at runtime, increasing the size of the application's working set and contributing to longer load times. SEH performance is also degraded under WOW64: additional overheads are required to support SEH, and the overheads compound the deeper into call stacks you go. Doesn't affect native 64-bit applications.

Perhaps you should actually test 64-bit applications on your 64-bit OS versus comparable 32-bit applications on the 32-bit OS rather than merely evaluating the performance of Windows' compatibility layer. And, perhaps, comparing ARM architectures might be slightly more relevant.
 
wonderfield said:
You're testing a 64-bit operating system that exhibits overheads in running 32-bit applications. Specifically, 32-bit applications on 64-bit versions of Windows load extra resources at runtime, increasing the size of the application's working set and contributing to longer load times. SEH performance is also degraded under WOW64: additional overheads are required to support SEH, and the overheads compound the deeper into call stacks you go. Doesn't affect native 64-bit applications.

Perhaps you should actually test 64-bit applications on your 64-bit OS versus comparable 32-bit applications on the 32-bit OS rather than merely evaluating the performance of Windows' compatibility layer. And, perhaps, comparing ARM architectures might be slightly more relevant.
Click to expand...

I am pretty sure Gimp and Google Earth are 64bit, but even then I noticed virtually no difference. What programs should I try next to see?
 
QwertyJuan said:
I went with 2GB of ram because of the fact that the iPhone only has 1GB... and did "average" things that most people will be doing with a computer(or checking email/twittering/snapchatting on their iPhone)
Click to expand...

Desktop operating systems chew up many more resources than their mobile counterparts, and Windows is a lot chunkier than OS X, let alone iOS (which is a pared down and highly optimized spin-off from OS X). There are different memory footprints, different multitasking conditions and different compatibility requirements.

As a rule, iOS and ARM handle the 32/64-bit gap more elegantly than Windows 8 64-bit. iOS 7 doesn't need to create special environments for 32-bit apps or otherwise treat them differently; they just run. As such, this isn't really a one-for-one comparison. The necessary overhead is just so wildly different that it's hard to ignore.
 
These are probably better benchmarks:

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_1310_3264&num=1
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_x86_1304&num=1
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_1210_3264&num=1
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=article&item=ubuntu_1204_3264&num=1

Testing launch times has little to do with the program's compiled architecture... and like wonderfield said the applications would have to be actually compiled for 64-bit architectures for the results to be valid.

Though I agree that the 64-bitness of the iPhone 5S is not the primary reason it performs better than prior iterations.
 
Aurelius said:
Desktop operating systems chew up many more resources than their mobile counterparts, and Windows is a lot chunkier than OS X, let alone iOS (which is a pared down and highly optimized spin-off from OS X). There are different memory footprints, different multitasking conditions and different compatibility requirements.

As a rule, iOS and ARM handle the 32/64-bit gap more elegantly than Windows 8 64-bit. iOS 7 doesn't need to create special environments for 32-bit apps or otherwise treat them differently; they just run. As such, this isn't really a one-for-one comparison. The necessary overhead is just so wildly different that it's hard to ignore.
Click to expand...

Didn't realize that... but without being able to force iOS6 onto an iPhone 5s, there is no way to tell if the move to 64bit did anything correct?
 
Like all things large companies do and especially apple its all marketing. The real reason for the move to 64bit just like in computers is probably because 4GB ram on phones is right around the corner.

Most every time I really look into a company claiming they are going green, it turns out it was just a side effect of a cost reduction.

A funny thing back when I was using OSX more we had a program and my boss bought a mac pro and loaded it up with 16GB of ram. The argument was this program needed lots of memory and OSX claimed to be 64bit. But for whatever reason they limited each program to 4GB of ram, lol what a waste of money that was.

Point is in order for 64bit to see any gains it has to need the extra space and memory and also everything from the OS to the individual application has to be made for it.
 
Like someone said above this was nothing more than a waste of time. Good effort OP but people who understand computers and the difference between 32 bit and 64 bit computing will know why this was not a accurate comparison in the least bit.
 
The only time the memory addressing will impact performance is when you are reaching maximum saturation on 32bit. Phones are still a ways off, let a lone iPhones, Android will probably hit this peak next year.

The most likely reason for them to push full 64bit support right now, instead of implementing key ARMv8 features like they normally do (they still did but they chose to select 64bit path as well) was for security reasons. They are now on the forefront of security, especially since the entirety of iOS is now 64bit.
 
it's a phone so does 64bit IOS make them there phone calls better/faster/stronger? lol
 
Trimlock said:
The only time the memory addressing will impact performance is when you are reaching maximum saturation on 32bit. Phones are still a ways off, let a lone iPhones, Android will probably hit this peak next year.

The most likely reason for them to push full 64bit support right now, instead of implementing key ARMv8 features like they normally do (they still did but they chose to select 64bit path as well) was for security reasons. They are now on the forefront of security, especially since the entirety of iOS is now 64bit.
Click to expand...

Exactly what I was trying to prove here... for NORMAL workloads the NORMAL guy isn't going to notice the difference between 64 and 32 bit. I'm not suggesting that 64bit is "worse", but that for anything that you do on a phone there is NO benefit. At this point in time it's a marketing gimmick and that's it!
 
You loaded up apps. I don't see anything that even stresses the cpu? Photoshop some photos, rip some music, format convert (video/audio)...than I'd follow, but maybe I'm missing something.

People do photo editing on their phones and video processing is also common.
 
Yep. Taking a normal 32-bit CPU and just increasing the address bus to 64 bits should not cause a performance increase.

But lets see what reasons Qualcomm will come up with when they release their 64bit cpus
 
SticKx911 said:
You loaded up apps. I don't see anything that even stresses the cpu? Photoshop some photos, rip some music, format convert (video/audio)...than I'd follow, but maybe I'm missing something.

People do photo editing on their phones and video processing is also common.
Click to expand...

I will do that!! I am guessing it will show the same results, but I will do that this week coming and get back! :)
 
I don't think there would be a speed increase out of the box, with a PC or a phone from going 32-bit to 64-bit. But, it does allow developers a bit more freedom and power to do things in the future. The first 64-bit AMD processors didn't do much more than 32-bit ones. Sure, you could address more than 4GB of RAM, but that was rarely done when they were first introduced. Now, with 16-32 GB being normal, that's a big advantage. Also, there are now native 64-bit applications being released (BF4, for example). It's taken a while for it to happen, but it will happen. With the iPhone, I don't see a huge flood of 64-bit application, nor do I see a need/desire or even any example of an app that would actually take advantage of a 64-bit version.

So, I think the whole speed difference between 32-bit and 64-bit is a load of nonsense. If anything, it'd be because the CPU is faster, more efficient or even the 64-bit software is better optimized. Not because of the bit difference.

Now, put on a 64-bit OS, load up a huge file in a 64-bit application and do some real work. Will there be a speed increase? Yes. Most definitely. That's where it comes in handy. Running IE 64 bit on 64-bit Windows 8 will likely not be any better than it's 32-bit counterpart. I hate the car analogy, but there is no difference between a Ferrari and a Geo Metro in a Wal-mart parking lot. Well, other than bragging rights.

Just my thoughts. It's not a speed thing. It's a going past the limits of 32-bit thing. I really don't think it's going to be faster (beyond a margin of error) by simply going 32 to 64 bit unless you're doing something that would really stress out the system.
 
Ur_Mom said:
I don't think there would be a speed increase out of the box, with a PC or a phone from going 32-bit to 64-bit. But, it does allow developers a bit more freedom and power to do things in the future. The first 64-bit AMD processors didn't do much more than 32-bit ones. Sure, you could address more than 4GB of RAM, but that was rarely done when they were first introduced. Now, with 16-32 GB being normal, that's a big advantage. Also, there are now native 64-bit applications being released (BF4, for example). It's taken a while for it to happen, but it will happen. With the iPhone, I don't see a huge flood of 64-bit application, nor do I see a need/desire or even any example of an app that would actually take advantage of a 64-bit version.

So, I think the whole speed difference between 32-bit and 64-bit is a load of nonsense. If anything, it'd be because the CPU is faster, more efficient or even the 64-bit software is better optimized. Not because of the bit difference.

Now, put on a 64-bit OS, load up a huge file in a 64-bit application and do some real work. Will there be a speed increase? Yes. Most definitely. That's where it comes in handy. Running IE 64 bit on 64-bit Windows 8 will likely not be any better than it's 32-bit counterpart. I hate the car analogy, but there is no difference between a Ferrari and a Geo Metro in a Wal-mart parking lot. Well, other than bragging rights.

Just my thoughts. It's not a speed thing. It's a going past the limits of 32-bit thing. I really don't think it's going to be faster (beyond a margin of error) by simply going 32 to 64 bit unless you're doing something that would really stress out the system.
Click to expand...

I agree 100%

I am NOT saying there is no difference... I should have made that more clear. What I am saying is that doing NORMAL everyday things, a 64bit iPhone with 1GB of ram(IMO) would be NO faster than a "fictional" 32bit iPhone with 1GB of ram, assuming that the clock speeds, etc... were equal. Yet, people I talk to (and see commenting online) go on and on until I want to puke about how their iPhone 5s is sooooooo much faster because it's 64bit.
 
Umm... is the OP seriously trying to make comparisons between 32 and 64 bit x86 processors and trying to correlate those somehow to the silicon used in mobile phones???

"tits on a bull" indeed.............
 
QwertyJuan said:
I am NOT saying there is no difference... I should have made that more clear. What I am saying is that doing NORMAL everyday things, a 64bit iPhone with 1GB of ram(IMO) would be NO faster than a "fictional" 32bit iPhone with 1GB of ram, assuming that the clock speeds, etc... were equal. Yet, people I talk to (and see commenting online) go on and on until I want to puke about how their iPhone 5s is sooooooo much faster because it's 64bit.
Click to expand...

They are still running 32-bit applications on a 64-bit CPU. If anything, that would make it slower a tiny bit... Well, depending on the new CPU, of course. I don't know anything about it personally.

It's not faster because it's 64-bit. It's faster because of a higher clock speed and other enhancements. Even could be a perceived 'faster' when it's not really any faster than it's predecessor. I know I fall into that. Build a new PC for a friend, and it's "SO MUCH FASTER!". Do benchmarks, and it's faster, but it's not by much.
 
Lots of wasted electrons.

A) The whole shift to 64bit thing started with the fact that 32bit can only address 4 GB's of address space.

B) The key advantage beyond total address space has to do with internal CPU design improvements. With internal caching and bigger and bigger caches, the ability to feed more bits-per-access into the CPU yields large overall performance gains. This was the driving force behind "64bit" computing, not the need for a 64 bit "instruction" set, but to feed more data into the CPU caches. The CPU's now from Intel and AMD are actually 128bit on the outside, because they have two 64bit memory controllers feeding 128 bit wide internal caches (level 3). None of THIS has anything to do with the size of the instruction set... which is what 8bit vs 16bit vs 32bit was all about decades ago.

C) To take advantage of being internally 64bit, the instruction set needs to be something to make use of it AND the software has to be written to take advantage of the advantage.... little to none of which is happening in desktop CPUs let alone Phone CPUs.
And your browser isn't going to have any need whatsoever for that level of sophistication, a "32" bit browser is going to work as fast as a "64bit" browser, with the possible exception of some high end video/rendering/animation calculations some data might require.

D) Shit like load times, etc have much more to do with the design of the rest of the system than what CPU or memory controller access width, or instruction set size the CPU may use. Flashram and Dram is only so fast, regardless of how many Mega-Hurtz the CPU runs at.

There, now I've wasted even more electrons .... but mine are better quality and more informative, so there .... :eek::rolleyes::cool:
 
Ur_Mom said:
They are still running 32-bit applications on a 64-bit CPU. If anything, that would make it slower a tiny bit... Well, depending on the new CPU, of course. I don't know anything about it personally.

It's not faster because it's 64-bit. It's faster because of a higher clock speed and other enhancements. Even could be a perceived 'faster' when it's not really any faster than it's predecessor. I know I fall into that. Build a new PC for a friend, and it's "SO MUCH FASTER!". Do benchmarks, and it's faster, but it's not by much.
Click to expand...

Touched on this earlier, but there shouldn't be any performance hit on iOS 7 when running 32-bit apps. ARM's 64-bit architecture includes 32-bit as a subset, so there's no compatibility layers or other hoop-jumping required.
 
One of the reasons we are seeing such a good power increase from the A7 is because they actually moved to the newer set, Qualcomm decided they would stick to their guns with milking the ARMv7 set. Next year we will most likely not get ARMv8 on android unless Samsung speeds up production of the next Exynos, which btw well probably never come to the USA.

I'd expect to see a true next gen SOC in android sometime shortly after android 5.0 releases.
 
Aurelius said:
It's pretty easy to completely shoot down this test, I'm afraid.

You're not testing 64-bit performance at all. Loading times are primarily tests of storage and memory speeds, not number-crunching. Fire up 64-bit native games, render a video in a 64-bit editor, compile code -- anything that could take advantage of the extra computational power. But do it with more than 2GB of RAM, because modern, performance-intensive desktop software will choke on that little memory, whether the OS is 32- or 64-bit.

You're right in that 64-bit by itself isn't an advantage for the iPhone 5s, though. Really, Apple's big edge is the ARMv8 architecture. There's a lot of under-the-hood improvements, and 64-bit is just coming along for the ride. However, that still means that Apple and developers can start writing 64-bit apps right away. It's potentially a big advantage in the long run; iOS will be fully ready for 64-bit when it's essential, and you won't need to own a cutting-edge phone when the switch happens.
Click to expand...

This. Exactly this. Comparing 64 and 32 bit Windows on an x86/x64 architecture doesn't mirror the situation at all.

I see 2 big wins for Apple going to 64 bit now. The first is the 64 bit ARMv8 instruction set. Running 64 bit apps (which all newly compiled apps will be 64 bit by default) on the iPhone 5S and a hypothetical 5S-32 without the 64 bit chip, and you would see better performance on the 64 bit chip. Even if the app isn't using more than 4GB of RAM, which wouldn't be available on an iOS device anyway.

The other big win I see is that they are making 64 bit compilation of apps not only very easy, but the default for new apps. Most Windows users are still running mostly 32 bit programs on 64 bit installations, and getting no benefits. By the time the 64 bit iPhone or iPad is commonplace (remember the Air and 5S are technically the high-end devices at the moment) I would venture a guess and say most apps a user would be using will be compiled for 64 bit and ready.
 
64 bit CPUs brings 2 major advantage over 32 bit CPUs that when utilized, it will outperform the latter.
1. Larger memory space/addressing, larger files can be loaded to RAM to lessen if not eliminate disk drive fetching
2. Larger registers to handle 2x as big integers in one cycle

You should try loading Excel 2013 32 and 64 bit respectively on your test PCs and load large spreadsheet with 500k rows and do large number calculations/formula.

But your conclusion as it stands is correct. 64 bit is not why the new iphone is faster.
 
Trimlock said:
The only time the memory addressing will impact performance is when you are reaching maximum saturation on 32bit. Phones are still a ways off, let a lone iPhones, Android will probably hit this peak next year.

The most likely reason for them to push full 64bit support right now, instead of implementing key ARMv8 features like they normally do (they still did but they chose to select 64bit path as well) was for security reasons. They are now on the forefront of security, especially since the entirety of iOS is now 64bit.
Click to expand...


Or.... wait for it... (drum roll)

MARKETING!
 
Blue Falcon said:
Umm... is the OP seriously trying to make comparisons between 32 and 64 bit x86 processors and trying to correlate those somehow to the silicon used in mobile phones???

"tits on a bull" indeed.............
Click to expand...

Come on now the OP thought he did something special and new!
 
jmilcher said:
Or.... wait for it... (drum roll)

MARKETING!
Click to expand...

I'm not aware of any marketing Apple uses to point out the 64 bit processor. If it's intended for marketing, is a fairly dumb idea to spend that much on r&d just to tagline it.
 
Aurelius said:
Desktop operating systems chew up many more resources than their mobile counterparts, and Windows is a lot chunkier than OS X
Click to expand...

I challenge this, my mac (late 2013 retina pro) uses about the same resources as my windows 8 machine (specs are fairly comparable, both have 4c/8t, 16gb ram, 256gb ssd, discrete nvidia graphics in both). I have noticed that osx's scheduler sucks in comparison to windows (at least I believe this be to the issue). If I have chrome open with some flash sites the cpu usages goes up (yes flash sucks, but that's not the point here) and I start getting entire system freezes. Closing chrome and the problem goes away, open back up and reload those same sites that cause high cpu usage problem comes back. Seems to me the scheduler is having a hard time swapping tasks to the cpu to keep other processes from taking to long to respond. Never had these problems on win 7 or 8. So far for me in my experience my macs (retina pro and 21" imac) have roughly same resource usage as windows but I have had more bugs, slow downs, and crashes on OSX than I have had on windows. I haven't had a lot of crashes so I'm not saying os x crashes all the time, but I have had exactly 0 bsods and system freezes on windows 8, so its not too hard to say one has more issues for me than the other.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top