32-bit Intel Core Duo ok with upcoming 64-bit Leopard?

How well suited is the 32-bit Intel Core Duo in my MacBook Pro to run the future 64-bit Leopard OS? What would be the compromises?
Should I sell my Core Duo now while I can (maybe...) and upgrade to the 64-bit Core2 Duo. Would a 32-bit chip such as the Core Duo struggle to operate efficiently - or at least as fast as it does under 32-bit Tiger - when run within the 64-bit Leopard OS?
Cheers
Ant

You might find this tidibit (from AnandTech) )interesting, Kappy:
"Why a 64-bit mode can actually be slower than a 32-bit counterpart
If all else is equal, a 64-bit MPU will be slower than its 32-bit equivalent. A study conducted by DEC found that, on average, compiling for 64bit programs decreases performance by 5%. This is because 64-bit address pointers occupy more space, resulting in higher data cache miss rates. In fact, 64-bit ISAs still support 64-bit addressing and 32-bit data operands, specifically to keep code size down and the miss rate penalty to a minimum; thus 32-bit integer data is still going to be used when the larger range of 64-bit integers are not needed.
What good is 64-bit computing?
There is one good use for 64-bit integer arithmetic: 64-bit flat memory addressing. Offering memory addressing beyond 4GB, 64-bit addressing needs 64-bit general purpose registers and 64-bit integer arithmetic for memory pointer calculations. This obviously has no effect on 32-bit vs. 64-bit performance, since 64-bit memory addressing on a 32-bit processor is a moot point."
So it's not clear that going 64-bit, in and of itself, would yield any improvement in performance; it may well be worse in some cases (and your analogy might well be true, depending on the cache algorhythms and efficiency).
Certainly if one processor has a wider memory bus than another, then the first processor should, all else being equal, outperform the second processor. I can't find specs on the memory fetch for the Core Duo and the Core 2 Duo, so I can't say whether or not they differ. The PowerPC G5 processor actually has a 128-bit wide memory fetch (64-bit in and 64-bit out) though it's classified as a "64-bit processor" (based on it's memory address space, I would presume).
So, as you allude, one has to be careful making performance estimates just based on a desciption of a processor being "32 bit" or "64 bit". We'll have to wait to see reasonable benchmarks between the Core Duo and the Core 2 Duo running a 64-bit OS before we'll really know what advantage, if any, there is.
Cheers.
Message was edited by: Dave Sawyer

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