Technology

We do, depending on how you count it.

There's two major widths in a processor. The data register width and the address bus width, but even that is not the whole story. If you go back to a processor like the 68000, the classic 16-bit processor, it has:

• 32-bit data registers
• 16- bit ALU
• 16-bit data bus
• 32-bit address registers
• 24-bit address bus

Some people called it a 16/32 bit processor, but really it was the 16-bit ALU that classified it as 16-bits.

If you look at a Zen 4 core it has:

• 64-bit data registers
• 512-bit AVX data registers
• 6 x 64-bit integer ALUs
• 4 x 256-bit AVX ALUs
• 2 x 128-bit data bus to DDR5 (dual edge 64-bit)
• ~40-bits of addressable physical RAM

So, what do you want to call this processor?

64-bit (integer width), 128-bit (physical data bus width), 256-bit (widest ALU) or 512-bit (widest register width)? Do you want to multiply those numbers up by the number of ALUs in a core? ...by the number of cores on a piece of silicon?

Me, I'd say Zen4 was a 256-bit core, but you could argue any of the above numbers.

Basically, it's a measurement that lost all meaning so people stopped using it.