hi helge & list, using boost.atomic on ia32/gcc causes me quite some headaches these days, as the cmpxchg8b instruction is enabled via the __i686__ or __x86_64__ macros. however on debian for example, the compiler defaults to generate code for i486. cmpxchg8b has been introduced with the p5 architecture, though, so compiling without specifying a -march flag won't generate the instruction. whatever, i wonder if it would be reasonable to enable cmpxchg8b by default on *all* ia32 platforms, not just on i686. advantage: less trouble, as we can be sure that the instruction is generated. boost.lockfree e.g. is not lockfree on ia32 without. disadvantage: the code won't work on i386 and i486 machines. imo, all ia32 machines without cmpxchg8b should belong to a museum, and we could introduce a macro like BOOST_ATOMIC_NO_CMPXCHG8B if we really care of compiling for any of those machines. thoughts? tim