I think what we're seeing here is the reason for the oft-heard,
seldom-heeded advice that the only benchmark which means anything is
*your application*. Once you see how the code you care about
performs, *then* you can bum a few cycles here and there to tune it
up. Generalities such as "64-bit machines are faster/slower" really
don't say much outside the context of a specific application.

--
Mark H. Wood, Lead System Programmer  mwood@(protected)
Typically when a software vendor says that a product is "intuitive" he
means the exact opposite.