x86

See also: 86

English

Etymology

The x functions as a wildcard; the processors immediately succeeding the original 8086 and using the same architecture (with progressively greater expansions) also had names ending in 86 (the 80186, 80286, 80386, and 80486; Intel shifted away from this numerical nomenclature after the 80486, but other manufacturers of x86 processors continued the series with -586- and -686-branded processors).

Proper noun

x86

1. (computing) Any of a family of instruction set architectures based on that used by the Intel 8086 microprocessor.
   1. Specifically, the 32-bit version of the x86 instruction set architecture.

      The x86 version of Windows 7 only supports a maximum of 4 GiB of RAM; 64-bit Windows can support a lot more.

   2. (rare) Specifically, the original, 16-bit version of the x86 instruction set architecture.

Synonyms

(the 32-bit x86 architecture):

• i386
• IA-32
• x86-32

Hyponyms

• x86-16 (16-bit x86)
• x86 64
• i386, IA-32, x86-32 (32-bit x86)
• AMD64, x64, x86-64 (64-bit x86)

See also

• x87
• MMX
• 3DNow!
• SSE
• SSE2
• SSE3
• SSSE3
• SSE4