int and long

[4ET0pfjN]

I am using Windows 7 64-bit and at first I didn't know why when I used sizeof for an int variable and a long variable, the output to console was 4 bytes, then I realized that it was b/c the c++.exe is running 32-bits.

I am a comp sci student and what does 32-bit or 64-bit mean, is it how much data can be processed at once so 32-bit machine means a processor that can handle 32-bits of information at once?

Can someone go into technical details, I would like to know (since I'm a comp sci student, first year).

[kbw]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Computer_word

[zvRX92yv]

When someone talks about 32 and 64 bit computers, they are usually referring to the size of the memory addresses, where 32-bit can address upto 4GiB of memory where 64-bit computers can address upto 128GiB.

The memory addresses are used by graphics cards as well.

[4ET0pfjN]

So it has nothing to do with how much data the CPU (processor) can handle simultaneously?

[codekiddy]

So it has nothing to do with how much data the CPU (processor) can handle simultaneously?

acctualy it does :D

[Cubbi]

I think the wikipedia article simply named "64-bit" gives a very good summary http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64-bit