What is the difference between 16bit and 32bit processor

Most computers made in the s and early s were bit machines. A bit system can access 2 32 4,,, memory addresses. Since most computers released over the past two decades were built on a bit architecture, most operating systems were designed to run on a bit processor. Therefore, popular operating systems, such as Windows and Mac OS X began shipping in both bit and bit editions, which allowed them to run on either 32 or bit hardware. While a bit processor can access 2 32 memory addresses, a bit processor can access 2 64 memory addresses.

For instance, A bit system can access 2 32 different memory addresses, i. A bit system can access 2 64 different memory addresses, i. In short, any amount of memory greater than 4 GB can be easily handled by it. Attention reader! Most computers made in the s and early s were bit machines.

One bit in the register can reference an individual byte in memory, so a bit system can address a maximum of 4 GB 4,,, bytes of RAM. The actual limit is often less than around 3. Most computers released over the past two decades were built on a bit architecture, hence most operating systems were designed to run on a bit processor.

Skip to content. A program that must continually change the segment register to access data structures especially single data structures that are bigger than 64K in size can waste a considerable amount of time computing segment values. Even worse, since the addresses that must be manipulated when computing data record locations that are greater than 16 bits wide, address computations are also slower because of all the double-precision math involved.

A bit processor can offer a linear bit address space with accompanying quick address calculations on a bit data path. Floating point calculations also require a bit processor for good efficiency. There are many instances in which scaled integer arithmetic is more appropriate than floating point numbers to increase speed on some processors. In these cases a bit processor may suffice. However, floating point math must often be used to reduce the cost of programming a project, and to support code written in high level languages.

Also, with the advent of very fast floating point processing hardware, the traditional speed advantage of integer operations over floating point operations is decreasing.