When buying a Mac you can always ask which processor to choose. The choice between 32 and 64 bits has always been hot, especially due to the limitations that have been imposed in recent years. In this article we explain how to know if your Mac is 64 or 32 bits.
What do the bits of a CPU mean?
The CPU is the brain of any computer and must know how to relate to the rest of the hardware components. Everyone will have encountered when installing a program with the fact of having to install the 32 or 64 bit version. Bits are one of the main values of any CPU and you have to know how to choose which one is the best depending on the use that will be made of the equipment.
Know how many bits your Mac’s CPU has
If at the time of making the purchase of your Mac you do not have knowledge about which processor you chose, at any time you can make the query in the system information. To do this you will simply have to do the following steps:
- In the toolbar, click on the apple icon.
- Then go to ‘System Information’.
- In the Hardware section you can view the information about the processor.
Another possibility that is presented is to open the system terminal. Although it may seem that this is a part of the system that is focused only on developers and is extremely complex, the truth is that it can offer a lot of information about the components of a computer. In the system terminal you simply have to enter the command:
getconf LONG_BITAt the moment a response will appear with information about the processor as well as the bits it has.
The differences between 64 and 32 bits
The main difference between the two processors undoubtedly lies in the number of values it offers. For example, a 32-bit CPU offers 4,294,967,296 possible values while a 64-bit CPU offers 18,446,744,073,709,551,616. When working, choosing between one and the other is fundamental with the amount of information that can be processed. With 32 bits the processor is limited to using only 4 GB of RAM while 64 bits use up to 16 GB of RAM.
All this data ultimately leads to the key point: the ability to process information at the same time. If you are editing a video or working with a multitude of applications that require different calculations, keep in mind that 64 bits will work much better. The fact of processing much more information makes them more attractive to the general public, this being one of the causes that is causing 32 bits to be becoming obsolete.
Right now the last Macs that have come on the market integrate these types of processor, leaving aside the 32 bits. This is vital when using the different applications that can be downloaded. If you are trying to get the best possible performance, try to install the 64-bit version whenever possible. This will get along much better with the processor and allow it to be more efficient. To give you an idea, 64-bit processors have the capacity to process 16 exabytes of cycles while 32-bit processors only support 4 bytes.
The problem that arises here is undoubtedly the optimization of the software to be able to make it compatible with 64 bits, something that is becoming more and more common.
macOS Catalina dropped 32 bits
As we have discussed previously, 32 bits are becoming increasingly obsolete. This forces developers to update their software to always be 64-bit updated. This is logical since the performance of the software adapted to current circumstances must be prioritized at all times. Currently all the latest generation Macs have been released with a 64-bit processor. This is why Apple to be able to speed up the process, starting with macOS Catalina stopped providing service to 32-bit programs with the impossibility of executing them.
