64-bit vs 32, speed difference

[Amedee Van Gasse (Ubuntu)]

On Sun, April 12, 2009 03:15, Sandy Harris wrote:
> I'm setting up a system with three boxes and Xubuntu. The firewall
> and the X-terminal are Intel Atom based, so have to run the i386 release.
> The main machine is a core 2 duo, so could (currently
> does) run the 64-bit version.
>
> It would be easier to manage, especially for caching updates,
> if all three ran the same system. My question is how much performance do I
> lose switching the main box to i386?
>
> It is a personal system. Browsing, Open Office, playing
> music & movies, some development stuff, mainly using Dr Scheme.

You are using software that is mainly user interactive, ie (waiting for)
input/output is most important. Then you will hardly notice a difference
between 32bit and 64 bit.

64bit will give a difference when you are doing heavy number crunching
without a lot of user input.