GHC benchmarks

[Ketil Malde]

Hi,

I've recently implemented some benchmarks for my library, and while I
expected a slowdown for 64-bit code, I'm a bit bit surprised by the
results.  In summary: 

  with 64 bit ghc 6.6.1, my benchmark runs in ~160 seconds
  with 32 bit ghc 6.6, it runs in             ~ 95 seconds

Most of the time is traversing a list of elements, doing a few
numerical calculations.  Presumably this is due to increased code size
due to 8-byte pointers?

I'll add some more benchmarks, but just wondered whether this was to
be expeced, and, if so, whether I perhaps should be running a 32 bit
version of GHC?  I tried to Google for other benchmark results, but
couldn't find any.

Are there any particular GHC options I should use for compiling 64-bit
code?  I'll install 6.8 RSN, perhaps that will improve things?

Oh, and if anybody wants to play with it, it should be possible to
install Data.Binary and HXT, and then:

    darcs get http://malde.org/~ketil/bio
    cd bio
    make bench

-k
-- 
If I haven't seen further, it is by standing in the footprints of giants