AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester is x86?

[Guest mcqueene@gmail.com]

I was looking at a Vista upgrade from XP and I found something at the

MSFT site that said you should check the environment variable named

"processor_architecture" for a value of x64. If you have a value of

x86 then you do not have a Vista 64 compatible cpu. But looking at the

old notes at AMD for this cpu it sounds like it's 64 bit compatible.

 

Any ideas who is correct? Should I just go 32bit Vista?

[Guest John Barnes]

Re: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester is x86?

 

Your cpu is 64-bit compatible. That said, there is still the decision on

whether it will provide you any value or just headaches going to Vista64. I

had that chip on my computer and Vista just hung a lot. Worked fine with XP

(both 32 and 64). Personally upgraded to a 6000+ X2 and it works fine

except that for my use Vista64 does not allocate properly between cores and

I get hangs with one core at 100% and the other one <20%. Works fine after

manually setting affinity for 6-10 running processes to balance things out,

but has to be done every time I logon.

 

<mcqueene@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:43a3b625-785d-4a75-9860-2dcbb3c01a3a@r60g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...

>I was looking at a Vista upgrade from XP and I found something at the

> MSFT site that said you should check the environment variable named

> "processor_architecture" for a value of x64. If you have a value of

> x86 then you do not have a Vista 64 compatible cpu. But looking at the

> old notes at AMD for this cpu it sounds like it's 64 bit compatible.

>

> Any ideas who is correct? Should I just go 32bit Vista?

[Guest Colin Barnhorst]

Re: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester is x86?

 

That's what the "64" stands for in "AMD Athlon 64". Your cpu is backwards

compatible with the x86 instruction set and runs equally well with x86

(32-bit) and x64 (64-bit) operating systems. The "x64" is used by

convention because the AMD64 was the first 64-bit cpu that was backwards

compatible with the x86 instruction set. The convention is to give the

processor class a designation from the company that pioneers it. "x86" is

used by convention to describe 32-bit cpu's that are compatible with the

Intel 8086 family of cpu's.

 

You will see AMD64 used in drivers (.inf files). It does not mean that only

AMD cpu's can use it but that it is meant for that class of cpu. The Intel

64-bit cpu's like the Core 2 line thus belong to the AMD64 class as odd as

that may sound at first.

 

<mcqueene@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:43a3b625-785d-4a75-9860-2dcbb3c01a3a@r60g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...

>I was looking at a Vista upgrade from XP and I found something at the

> MSFT site that said you should check the environment variable named

> "processor_architecture" for a value of x64. If you have a value of

> x86 then you do not have a Vista 64 compatible cpu. But looking at the

> old notes at AMD for this cpu it sounds like it's 64 bit compatible.

>

> Any ideas who is correct? Should I just go 32bit Vista?

[Guest Steve Foster [SBS MVP]]

Re: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester is x86?

 

mcqueene@gmail.com wrote:

>I was looking at a Vista upgrade from XP and I found something at the

>MSFT site that said you should check the environment variable named

>"processor_architecture" for a value of x64. If you have a value of

>x86 then you do not have a Vista 64 compatible cpu. But looking at the

>old notes at AMD for this cpu it sounds like it's 64 bit compatible.

>

>Any ideas who is correct? Should I just go 32bit Vista?

 

The Processor_Architecture environment variable shows whether you're

running a 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows. It does not tell you what

the physical CPU is *capable* of doing.

 

I get values of x86 on 32-bit Windows and AMD64 on 64-bit versions, even

though both are running on the same processor (not at the same time!).

 

--

Steve Foster [sBS MVP]

---------------------------------------

MVPs do not work for Microsoft. Please reply only to the newsgroups.

[Guest Gary Avrett]

Re: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Manchester is x86?

 

I have Vista 64 on my AMD X2 6000+ and working fine for the stuff I can get

drivers too.

 

<mcqueene@gmail.com> wrote in message

news:43a3b625-785d-4a75-9860-2dcbb3c01a3a@r60g2000hsc.googlegroups.com...

>I was looking at a Vista upgrade from XP and I found something at the

> MSFT site that said you should check the environment variable named

> "processor_architecture" for a value of x64. If you have a value of

> x86 then you do not have a Vista 64 compatible cpu. But looking at the

> old notes at AMD for this cpu it sounds like it's 64 bit compatible.

>

> Any ideas who is correct? Should I just go 32bit Vista?