Difference between 32 bit and 64 bit operating systems

Definition:

The basic difference is that how many calculations a processor can do in a second. This effects in speed and performance of machine also high-end application which requires a lot of calculations are made it using 64-bit processors.

A 32-bit system can access 232 memory addresses, i.e 4 GB of RAM or physical memory ideally, it can access more than 4 GB of RAM also. A 64-bit system can access 264 memory addresses, i.e actually 18-Quintillion bytes of RAM. In short, any amount of memory greater than 4 GB can be easily handled by it.

64-bit processors generally come with 8 GB of RAM and dual-core, octa-core versions.

Most computers made in the early 1990 and 2000 were 32bit thus requiring 32 bit OS.

One bit in a register can reference 1 byte making 32 bits around 4GB.