What's the difference of amd64 linux?

[Gleinily]

What's the difference of amd64 linux?

[AlbertP]

Please see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86-64 for a description of the x86-64 instruction set (known as AMD 64 because it was invented by AMD).
The amd64 versions of Linux distros are taking advantage of the new features introduced by this CPU architecture.

[przemoli]

Or in short:

i386/i686 are names for specific 32 bit instruction sets that Intel made for CPUs (with same names). After some time Intel made instruction set for 64bits Itanium. However those where incompatible with i386..

AMD made amd64 to be 64bit and compatible with i386/i686.

Practical implications are that you can run i386 linux version on amd 64 bit CPUs, while to run something on Itanium you need to have Itanium specific version. That was so good that Intel just use amd64 for their consumer 64bit CPUs.

Go to wikipedia for more detail.

To decide which one to use check your CPU (is it 32bit? or 64?), and what is recommended by your Linux distribution.

[anomaly65]

another bonus is with AMD processors, and a 64 bit OS, a few more general purposes CPU registers become available.

can expect a 5%+ performance improvement.