CPU Features - CompTIA A+ 220-1201 - 3.5

If you look at the system information for your computer, you'll see a lot of interesting information. For example, on this computer, the system type is a 64-bit operating system, and it is an ARMbased processor. And you may be wondering, what do those specifications refer to? Well, let's start with the 64-bit operating system. In today's

modern world, we tend to see two different kinds of operating systems, a 32-bit and a 64-bit. This is referring to the capabilities of the CPU on your computer and how much information is able to process at any particular time. It also refers to the total amount of address space that a single CPU could

reference. For example, a 32-bit processor can store ones and zeros to a maximum of 2 to the 32nd power. And that is a lot of information that we are storing into the memory of a system. But with today's technologies, a 32-bit address size is relatively small. That's why we created a 64-bit processor which

can store 2 to the 64th power of total information. And you can see that very large value is listed on the screen. If we want to put this in a bit more of accessible terms, you can specify a 32-bit processor can reference 4 GB of memory, where a 64-bit processor can reference 17 billion GB of memory. Now,

obviously, the 64-bit operating system that I'm using on my computer probably can't reference 17 billion GB, and my computer probably couldn't support that much memory inside of a system. But many operating systems can scale up to very large amounts and they're able to do that because they're running a 64-bit processor. As you can imagine, there are

a number of differences in operation between a 32-bit operating system and a 64-bit operating system. For example, if you're running a 64-bit OS, your hardware drivers that you're using on that operating system need to be written for a 64-bit operating system. If you're using a 32-bit operating system, then you need to make sure your hardware