title: How does register size affect processor performance?
body: <p>I've been flying around the internet today trying to wrap my head around this topic. So here's what I understood so far. So the bigger the register size the bigger the instructions a processor can handle? </p>
  
  <p>Quote:</p>
  
  <blockquote>
    <p>The size of the registers, which is sometimes called the word size, indicates the amount of data with which the computer can work at any given time. </p>
  </blockquote>
  
  <p>Question 1:<br>
  How would this be explained in terms of dealing with RAM? Why would a 32-bit processor be less adept or slower at processing information in this case?</p>
  
  <p>Also, the term addressing. So while a 64-bit processor can "address" 2^64 different locations in RAM, a 32-bit processor can only deal with 2^32.</p>
  
  <p>Question 2:<br>
  What does addressing mean? And why would the ability to address more locations be more helpful?</p>
  
  <p>Question 3:<br>
  How are these 2 points, 1)Number of addressable locations and 2)Instruction size, related? </p>
  
  <p>I hope my questions aren't confusing. It would be nice if references and examples to RAM as well as comparisons between 32 and 64-bits would be given in the explanations.</p>