I am not sure where to post this question. So let me know if it is best posted somewhere else. I was wondering and trying to figure out if this program runs more efficiently running more 32 bit CPUs (I8400-32 bit seen as 4 processors) or 64 bit processors (I8400-64 bit seen as 2 processors)? Also why BOINC measures in MIPS and not MFLOPS? Is there a benchmark for MFLOPS slated to be added to BOINC?

Well BOINC itself doesn't do anything but serve as a manager for communications and scheduling. It's the science projects where bitness (is that a real word?) makes a difference. Some apps (mostly integer heavy ones) show substantial speedups (ABC@Home comes to mind) where fp heavy apps don't.

Personally, if I have a 64 bit CPU, I'm going to run the 64 bit version of BOINC so it'll request 64 bit work (if available). BOINC is set up so that if there is no 64 bit science app, it'll fall back and get the 32 bit one, which should run fine*.

*Linux users, depending on distro, might have to install ia32 libs from their package manager so the 32 bit apps don't crash in a 64 bit OS.

---

Kathryn :o)