32 bit or 64 bit

P

Pegesus

Limp Gawd
Joined
Jan 9, 2003
Messages
304
Ok here is the question. I have an AMD Athlon 64 35000+. Its nearly 3 years old. I was under the impression that it is a 64 bit processor however when i did a test for vista 64 its saying its not. The test basically was if the processor architecture was listed as a x86 or a x64 and mine was the x86 meaning 32 bit. Is this right? the specs on the processor say that it is 64 bit capable and i was under the impression that all amd 64's were in fact 64 bit processors.
 
correct however this is what is on the Microsoft website:

In the "System variables" list at the bottom of the Environment Variables window, look for a variable called "PROCESSOR_ARCHITECTURE". If your PC has a 32-bit processor, this variable will have a value of "x86". If it has a 64-bit processor this variable will have a value of "x64".
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So from that above statement on Windows Vista Website it seems that unless the architecture is x64 then i cannot run Vista 64. Am i reading that right?
 
The problem is that this system variable is set by the OS. The OS is 32-bit, hence the architecture used is 32-bit (or in your case a 64-bit processor in 32-bit mode).

If it was set to x64, applications would be confused, since the OS won't support anything x64. But any Athlon64 supports x64.. You'd just need an x64 version of the OS to get it to read x64.

A better test would be to download a CPU tool such as CPU-Z, and check to see if it lists 'x86-64', 'EM64T', or 'x64' ... They're 3 names for the same thing... x86-64 was the original 'vendor-neutral' name for the 64-bit extensions. x64 is the short version of this, and is commonly used by Microsoft to indicate its 64-bit products. EM64T is Intels name for the 64-bit extensions (AMD originally called theirs AMD64, obviously Intel didn't want to use that name)...
 
Actually, x64 is a dumb name that Microsoft came up with. The architecture is either referred to as x86_64 or just amd64 (since it was AMD that came up with this 64-bit implementation, EMT-64 is a copy of amd64). No one outside of referring to windows even says x64.
 
slithy said:
Actually, x64 is a dumb name that Microsoft came up with. The architecture is either referred to as x86_64 or just amd64 (since it was AMD that came up with this 64-bit implementation, EMT-64 is a copy of amd64). No one outside of referring to windows even says x64.
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Careful. Saying things like that is bound to attract more than a few Intel !!!!!!s to this thread. If your asking yourself "Why?" dont worry, you'll find out soon enough me thinks.
 
I'm not trying to dangle any flame bait...

From Wikipedia Entry:

x86-64 is a 64-bit microprocessor architecture and corresponding instruction set; it is a superset of the Intel x86 architecture, which it natively supports. It was designed by Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), who have since renamed it AMD64. This architecture has also been adopted by Intel under the name Intel 64 (formerly known as EM64T, IA-32e, Clackamas Technology (CT) in reverse order).[1] The names x86-64 or x64 are sometimes used as vendor-neutral terms to collectively refer to the two nearly identical implementations.
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