Opteron 32-bit or 64-bit

[Arthur Perry]

Hi Jason,

Yes, you can run 32 bit version of RHEL on X86_64.
However, you will not be taking advantage of the 64 bit capabilities.
You should not expect maximum performance from the machine under various
circumstances when running 32 bit software.

Existing 32 bit applications will not only run on the 32 bit version of
RHEL, but if you install the 64 bit version of RHEL, I believe that they
will run on that too.
This is one of the big selling points of using Opteron.
You can pretty much seamlessly move your 32 bit apps to this wonderful new
64 bit platform, with the intent of going 64 bit in the future.
Large footprint memory intensive applications will work best with the 64
bit.
Applications vary, and so may your mileage.




On Tue, 25 Jan 2005, Jason DePaul wrote:

>
> Hi All:
>
> I am in the process of purchasing 40 nodes for a calculation cluster for my company.  We going to purchase Opteron
> based servers.  My question is, will I take full advantage of the servers if I installed the 32-bit version of RHEL
> 3 ES? Do I need to install the 64-bit version of the either ES or AS to fully utilize the Opteron systems.
>
> Will existing 32-bit applications run on the 64-bit version of the OS on the Opteron.
>
> Thanks and best regards
>
> JD
>
>
>
>
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Arthur Perry
Senior Linux Systems/Software Engineer