Intel’s Core architecture was launched about a week ago and even if the performance has left little to wish for discussions have appeared regarding the Core architecture’s EM64T integration and its performance in a 64-bit environment. The reason for this is suppose to be that the Core architecture lacks a technology called Macrofusion in a 64-bit environment. At X-bit Labs they’ve dissected the Core architecture’s EM64T support and tried to explain what would perhaps result in worse performance in a 64-bit environment. They’ve also take the time to perform various benchmarks in both 32-bit and 64-bit environments with the three big processor architectures on the market, Core, K8 and NetBurst.
The performance varies quite a lot between the benchmarks but overall Core seems to bring a stable 64-bit support which in most cases results in improved performance. Even if there are obvious exceptions, while AMD’s K8 architecture with AMD64 seems to be the most effective 64-bit processor today.
