What is a 64-bit Operating System?
A 64-bit register can theoretically reference 18,446,744,073,709,551,616 bytes or 17,179,869,184 GB (16 exabytes) of memory. This is several million times more than an average workstation would need to access. What’s important is that a 64-bit computer (which means it has a 64-bit processor) can access more than 4 GB of RAM. A computer with 8 GB of RAM better has a 64-bit processor. Otherwise, at least 4 GB of memory will be inaccessible by the CPU.
Difference Between 32-bit and 64-bit Operating Systems
In computing, there are two types of processors existing, i.e., 32-bit and 64-bit processors. These types of processors tell us how much memory a processor can access from a CPU register. For instance,
A 32-bit system can access 232 different memory addresses, i.e. 4 GB of RAM or physical memory ideally, it can access more than 4 GB of RAM also.
A 64-bit system can access 264 different memory addresses, i.e. actually 18-quintillion bytes of RAM. In short, any amount of memory greater than 4 GB can be easily handled by it.
Table of Content
- What is a 32-Bit Operating System?
- What is a 64-Bit Operating System?
- Difference Between 32-bit and 64-bit Operating System
- Advantages of 64-bit Over 32-bit