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The Raspberry Pi 3 does have 1.2GHz 64-bit quad-core ARMv8 CPU. The official downloads offer a build for ARMv7. Is there any (performance) advantage in compiling your own binaries for Raspberry Pi 3, pressumably taking advantage of the ARMv8? If so, how should one do this?

Follow-up question: Does it matter which kind of Linux OS is being used? Right now, I am running Ubuntu MATE 16.04 (instead of Raspbian). Edit: When I log on to it remotely, it displays a banner: Welcome to Ubuntu 16.04 LTS (GNU/Linux 4.1.19-v7+ armv7l). That probably rules out taking advantage of the ARMv8?

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At the present time, nobody ships a 64bit kernel or OS for Raspberry Pi 3. That's why we only provide 32bit binaries for the Pi 3. So no, you cannot leverage the ARMv8 features of the Pi 3 yet. If you want an actual 64 bit ARM device with 64 bit software support, try the Pine A64.

Other devices with good ARM64 support - anything using Rockchip RK3368, Amlogic S912, or Hisilicon Kirin 650, 955, etc. I've tested ARMv8 support on all of these successfully with decent results.

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    Thanks. However, I don't undertand what sets the Pine A64 apart. The Rasberry Pi 3 is also having a (if not the same) 64-bit processor. What kind of 64-bit OS would one run on the Pine A64 that's not possible on the Raspberry Pi 3?
    – dpzz
    Commented Dec 18, 2016 at 22:41
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    The Raspberry Pi 3 does now have some 64bit OSes available for it. E.g.: betanews.com/2016/11/22/64-bit-os-for-raspberry-pi
    – Edmund Broadley
    Commented Dec 20, 2016 at 7:34
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    The CPU used in the Raspberry Pi 3 doesn't include hardware AES support. That's an optional part of the ARMv8-A spec, which Broadcom chose not to implement. So you'll get a small speedup vs the 32bit code (because the 64bit code can do a 128bit multiply faster than the 32bit code) but still much slower than one of the other devices with full ARMv8-A support.
    – hyc
    Commented Jun 14, 2017 at 19:44

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