Re: [PATCH 1/2] lib: Provide generic atomic64_t implementation

Paul Mackerras
2009-06-15T04:31:17Z

Roland Dreier writes:

> FWIW, Nehalem EX actually goes to 8 cores/16 threads per socket. But
> worrying about 32-bit performance on Nehalem is a little silly -- this
> simplest solution is simply to run a 64-bit kernel.

I'm not worried about ANY x86 processor, 32-bit or 64-bit, in fact,
since x86 already has an atomic64_t implementation for both 32-bit and
64-bit.

It is interesting, though, that arch/x86/include/asm/atomic_32.h
unconditionally uses cmpxchg8b to implement atomic64_t, but I thought
that cmpxchg8b didn't exist in processors prior to the Pentium.
Presumably you can't use perf_counters on a 386 or 486.

Paul.