Sunday, July 27, 2008

Memory Usage 64 bit vs 32 bit on Ubuntu 8.04.1

*Corrected mistake, thanks Martin.

I have previously posted about memory usage on 7.10. http://gquigs.blogspot.com/2007/12/32-vs-64-bit-memory.html

All tests were done with an Ubuntu LiveCD on the same machine for both 7.10 and 8.04.1. A network card may have changed between 7.10 and 8.04.1. Applications used were Firefox, OpenOffice.org Writer, Rhythmbox, Totem and Gimp. All values copied out of Gnome System Monitor.

Comparing Ubuntu 8.04.1 64 to 32


32 bit

64 bit

Difference

Initial Boot

154.1

237.6

83.5

With Apps Open

262.7

395.7

133


I used the Phoronix Test Suite to attempt to get an idea of how ram access is changed from 32 bit to 64 bit. I was hoping to find a benefit for using 64 bit. I performed a very small test and did not find the benefit (in fact 64 bit was slighly slower). Results below:
http://global.phoronix-test-suite.com/?k=profile&u=quigs-32083-11560-32025
Note: This was a very very small test.

Comparing 7.10 to 8.04.1, Initial Boot Only


7.10

8.04.1

Difference

32 bit

146.0
154.1
+8.1

64 bit

212.9
237.6
+24.7

1 comments:

Martin said...

Hi, nice post!
Your second table is inverted, because the memory values for 32 and 64 bits are different from (inverted) the ones of the first table.