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Old 5th May 2008
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phoenix phoenix is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by FloridaBSD View Post
Does this mean rthat the AMD Atlon X2 Duel Core 5600+ processor in my Pavillion a6230n Desktop Is acyurally not based uopon a true sixty-four bit Processor, but instead A 32 bit chip masquerading as a 6bit chip
64-bit x86 CPUs are not "designed from the ground up" to be 16-bit, 32-bit, or 64-bit (the 80286 was just a 16-bit evolution of the 8-bit 8086, the 80386 was just a 32-bit evolution of the 16-bit 80286, and the athlon64 is just a 64-bit evolution of the 32-bit 80386). They are just extensions of earlier designs to support new 64-bit features. They are an evolutionary step in the lifetime of the x86 architecture. However, that's not to say they aren't true 64-bit CPUs, as they are; it just depends on the OS you install.

If you install a 32-bit OS on your amd64 CPU, you get a souped-up 32-bit CPU.

If you install a 64-bit OS on your amd64 CPU, you get a 64-bit CPU, with all the advanced features that come with it.
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