Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[fastpathguru]

Meanwhile, all the other dozens of popular apps getting 0% or less improvement will be quietly ignored.

Somehow I doubt they'll be ignored.

Anyways, why wouldn't you just use the "original" version of a hypothetical peice of software that suffered negative improvement? Perhaps 64-bitness would be worth the loss in performance for some applications?

Regardless, your whole theory is bunk, as an application can be compiled for 32-bit only operation, and yet still use all the features of long-mode. Yes, long-mode supports 32-bit pointers. If need be, a "super 32-bit" compiler can be created that does just that: Compile 32-bit apps for long-mode, enjoying the benefits of the larger register file, etc. etc. etc.

fpg