How Athlon 64 works ?

In the preceding chapter, we have the internal architecture of standard processors. We will see in this chapter the architecture of Athlons 64 bits (Athlon 64 - Athlon FX and Opteron). Even if the heart of the processor seems equivalent, the various models differ mainly by their external components.

The athlon 64 in the general direction use a mixed internal architecture 32 - 64 bits. They are thus able to use operating systems 32 bits (Windows 95/98/me/2000/NT/XP) and operating system 64 bits (currently semi-2004: Linux even if a version Windows 64 bits is under development - specific versions Windows server).

Itanium of INTEL use only one architecture 64 bits, they can thus use only operating system 64 bits.

A processor 64 bits using an operating system 64 bits can jointly use applications 32 and 64 bits. On the other hand, case of the AMD, a processor 64 bits turning on an operating system 32 bits can make turn only of the applications 32 bits. Conversely, a processor 32 bits can use only operating systems and applications 32 bits.

A broad part of the information taken again on this page comes directly from the site of AMD.