From subsecret
Since there is no official 64bit Rasbian distribution for the Raspberry Pi 3, there has been a lot of discussion if a 64bit version would actually give any performance benefit.
I try to answer the question by performing BWA-0.6.2 benchmark on various kernels and distributions.
I have added a heatsink and fan to the RPI3, to allow for non-throttled performance.
Debian bootstrap is used for building bwa, so the same binary is used for all distributions
debootstrap --no-check-gpg --variant=buildd --arch=armhf unstable arm32-sbuild http://ftp.debian.org/debian debootstrap --no-check-gpg --variant=buildd --arch=arm64 unstable arm64-sbuild http://ftp.debian.org/debian
pi64: https://github.com/bamarni/pi64
openSUSE: http://download.opensuse.org/ports/aarch64/tumbleweed/images/openSUSE-Tumbleweed-ARM-XFCE-raspberrypi3.aarch64-Current.raw.xz
| Dist | Kernel | Kernel-arch | Native env | 32bit chroot env | 64bit chroot env |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Raspbian (32bit) | stock 4.9.24-v7+ | 32bit | 355.260 | 351.479 | N/A |
| Raspbian (32bit) | self-compiled 4.10.15-v7 | 32bit | 355.748 | 351.983 | N/A |
| Raspbian (32bit) | self-compiled 4.10.15-v8 | 64bit | 381.616 | 375.793 | 294.206 |
| pi64 (64bit) | stock 4.11.0+pi64-v8+ | 64bit | 280.148 | 360.715 | 278.164 |
