[CentOS] difference in x86 64 bit centos between 4.x and 5.x versions

[John R Pierce]

RobertH wrote:
> i am new to the x86 64 bit centos versions.
>
> ive always used the 32 bit version on industrial type HP hardware
>
> for those of you that are running x86 64 bit centos, other than specific
> hardware issues, are you finding that 5.x centos is better than 4.x centos
> for x86 64 bit processing?
>
> does it matter in the amd vrs intel hardware differences what you choose to
> use for centos version?
>
> other things to make note of?
>
> if i need to be more specific in the general-ness of the approach, please
> let me know.
>
> thanks in advance for feedback.
>   


the first generation of Intel Xeon's (based on P4 Prescott) that 
supported x86_64 were only slightly faster in 64bit mode than in 32bit 
mode, while the AMD Opterons were considerably faster.   the newer Intel 
Xeons (based on Core2Duo) are quite a bit better.

the latest Intel CPUs are generally faster at most/many things than 
AMD's CPUs, however, AMDs CPUs may still do better at scientific type 
programming that can't take advantage of the SSE3/etc 'dsp' style 
functions.   Servers are as much a function of memory and IO bandwidth 
as anything, so there's many factors.