On 6/4/07, D. Hugh Redelmeier <hugh@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
| From: <clemens@xxxxxxx> | A very dumb question, but then having had a REAL 64 bit | machine on my desk years ago (an alpha) Ive never been | impressed with the Intel/AMD implementations of '64bit'. Of course Intel owns the Alpha now. But I hear that a number of the ideas and designers were used in the AMD chips. | So, what Intel chip sets qualify to run 64 bit Linux. I've heard that 64-bit mode is a tack on to the P4 design so it is best avoided. In particular, 64-bit operations have to go through the ALU twice. I have not verified this because I find the P4 generally unattractive anyway. The Intel Core does not implement 64 bit. The Intel Core 2 does a good job of implementing 64 bit. A Xeon is either a P4, Core, or Core 2 and behaves correspondingly (old Xeons might be P3 or even P2, neither of which had 64 bit support). Itanium is 64 bit. AMD does a good job of implementing 64 bit. Older Athlon (without 64 in their name) and Semprons don't implement it. I'm not sure how you can tell whether a particular Sempron implements it. Google and Wikipedia are your friends.
I have a Sempron 2800+ and it is x64 capable. Most recent Semprons are x64 capable.
