What is meant by 16 bit, 32 bit, 64 bit in computers?

Question

I know what a bit and a byte are, but I don't understand what these terms are and how they differ.

I'm sure this is a totally basic question, but I can't find an answer anywhere!

Answer 1

It refers to the number of bits that can be fed to the processor at one shot.

The more bits, the more instructions that can be handled in a single clock cycle.

Obviously, that's a boiled-down answer. For a more technical, accurate and complete answer try "How Computers Work" (cheap, decent reference), or just Google it.

Answer 2

A 16 bit computer works with data in groups of 16 bits, or 2 bytes. A 32 bit computer works with data in groups of 32 bits, or 4 bytes. And 64 does the same with 64 bits / 8 bytes. The bit size refers to what is the native, or standard byte count of the machine. All instructions will be, for example, 32 bits long for a 32 bit machine and so on for each bit size. Also, the native integer type size is typically defined by the processor architecture.

Answer 3

the present customary is a 32 bit operating gadget. So, except you specifically ordered a sixty 4 bit gadget even as to procure the computer, you pick the 32 bit version of this technique.

Answer 4

How big the numbers are, as 2^16, 2^32, 2^64 these correspond to decimal numbers 10^4.816, 10^9.63, 10^19.26 which are some pretty big numbers.

Answer 5

it refers to the memory when you talk about 32 and so on it is megabytes when you have single figures it relates to gigabytes(a thousand million megabytes)

Answer 6

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/64-bit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/32-bit
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/16-bit

You must have tried real hard when you were researching by yourself.