Processors
 

Help needed!!!!

I was just reading an article about the new AMD processor on the market when I was alerted to these two words [COLOR="Lime"]'register size'[/COLOR. Can anyone explain to me if there is really a difference between register size (64-bit)and Bus width (64 -bit.:confused: To be more specific if I am not mistaken all the Pentium processors have 64-bit Bus width whereas it is said that only Itanium 2, Xeon and the newer P4s have 64-bit register.

Any help will be very much appreciated.

32 bit and 64 bit processors
 

Forget about the bus width its not that important. Until AMD
introduced their AMD 64 processors, PC processors were 32 bits.
This has certain limitations e.g. programs can only use 4gig of
memory. With the introduction of 64 bit processors the maximum
memory is now up into the terabyte range. Intel didn't plan to
make a 64bit processor but they were forced to copy AMD and now
the most recent Intel processors are also 64 bits. However the
good new is that both Intel and AMD 64bit processors also run
all the existing 32 bit programs even when you use a 64 bit
operating system. Also all these 64 bit processors allow you to
install and use 32 bit operating systems. There is not that much
64 bit software around at present but if you are buying a new
computer or upgrading your present machine then get a 64 bit
processor.