X-bit labs

Windows XP Professional x64 Edition Preview: AMD64 and Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology (page 6)

Category: CPU

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

[ 02/08/2005 | 02:16 PM ]

32-Bit Applications Performance

In the first part of our test session we decided to test the performance of our systems in 32-bit applications run in the WOW64 emulator of our Windows XP Professional x64 Edition and compare it with the performance we get in the same applications run under Windows XP Professional SP2. For this purpose we ran the same 32-bit applications in the new OS and in the regular Windows XP Professional SP2. We performed this testing experiment for both: AMD Athlon 64 based system and Intel Pentium 4 based system, which allowed us to evaluate the efficiency of the CPUs from different manufacturers for work with WOW64 emulator.

As we see, while we do not get to 3D graphics, i.e. until we involve the graphics drivers, Windows XP Professional x64 Edition performs very impressive. Athlon 64 as well as Pentium 4 work with 32-bit applications almost as fast as in the 32-bit Windows XP Professional SP2. In other words, the use of 64-bit operating system with the CPUs based on x86-64 architecture doesn’t have any negative influence on the performance in old 32-bit applications. Windows XP Professional x64 Edition switches the CPUs correctly into the compatibility mode, so that the 32-bit programs see CPUs with 64-bit extensions as if they had no 64-bit support.