The ix86 Game !!!

 The ix86 Game!!!


I was thinking what to write today, but when i was downloading
wine it asked for architecture type and gave all ix86's
We know our cpu's as pentiums, amds or powerpcs
So i thought let me clarify this issue
So here goes the "ix86 game" ..

This question came up internally, in the context of picking which binary
package to use for some modern hardware. One incorrect answer is
"non-Intel Pentiums", lead by AMD's mind tricks with numbering schemes
going back a few years. When AMD say "6", think "5" :-)

There's a cpuid database in the Linux kernel. gcc also knows about
cpus. Poking about between the two gives some answers. Here is my software
person's perspective on what these labels mean:

i386 is just what it says, one of the 80386 product lines.

i486 ditto.

i586 is all Pentiums up until but not including the PentiumPro, and AMDs
K6 series (including the AMD K6-2) and Cyrix (now VIA/EDEN.) You can add
MMX instruction optimisation to some i586 compiles.

i686 is AMDs Athlon and all Pentiums after the PentiumPro including II,
III, IV and Celeron. You can add some chip-specific optimisations to some
i686 compiles too.

http://www.freehackers.org/gentoo/gccflags/flag_gcc3.html gives a bit of a
summary. gcc resources go into this stuff in exhaustive (exhausting)
depth.

In my experience having an i386 distribution on i586-or-higher hardware is
noticeably slower. I have never compared an i686 distro against i585 on
the same hardware but I'd be surprised if it makes too much difference.