what is x86?
what is x86?
The name x86 comes from its connection to the original Intel 8086 processor architecture. It stands for "Advanced Standard 86," reflecting its role in advancing computing standards. The term became popular as a shorthand for this significant family of processors.
It's a group of instruction sets for processor architectures. Even though it's often referred to as 32-bit, that doesn't mean it's limited to that size.
I don't actually know the answer myself, but here's quote from Yahoo x86 is actually just notation for a CPU instruction set which has been used in most modern day processors. x86 actually has three different subsets: x86-16 (16-bit), x86-32 (32-bit) and x86-64 (64-bit). The 32-bit version of x86 became so common that eventually the term "x86" by itself was known to be the 32-bit iteration. The newer 64-bit version can be referred to as it is above, but far more often is simply called "x64", which can understandably be confusing to someone who doesn't have a lot of knowledge concerning computer hardware, as it sounds like a step backwards! Because of this, the 32-bit version of Vista is "x86", and the 64-bit version is "x64"
This instruction set powers most contemporary desktops, laptops, and even certain tablets. For a detailed explanation, Wikipedia offers an extensive article: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X86_64. It remains known as X86_64 or AMD64.
It's an instruction set for 32-bit processors. 64-bit processors are called x86_64 processors AFAIK.