how much memory can be accessed by a 32 bit machine?

Question

What is meant by 32bit or 64 bit machine?

It’s the processor architecture…a 32 bit machine can read and write 32bit data at a time same way with 64 bit machine….

Answer 1

Basically, the term "x-bit machine" does not depend on your machine. That is why we do not need to change our processors or other hardware in order to migrate from a 32bit system to a 64bit one (or vice versa).

32bit and 64bit stands for the addressing capability of the OS running on your machine.

However, it still does not mean that a x-bit operating system is capable to address 2^x GB memory. Because the 'B' in "GB" means "byte" and not "bit". 1 byte equals 8 bits.

Actually a 32bit system can not even address 2^32/8 = 2^29 GB memory space while there should some memory be reserved to the OS.

It is something just below 3 GB.