What is windows XP 64bit

On browsing the net today i have came accross something a bit strange its a version of windows xp called windows xp 64bit. Designed specifically for 64bit machines.

What is this, is this a proper microsoft endorsed version of windows or some hacked tweaked version that someone has released.

If so how is it different from normal xp home that i currently have installed.

I own an athlon 2200 512 DDR memory machine, is it compatable for me and if i used it what differences would i notice.

Thanks again for everyones help.
Anthony

 

Windows XP 64bit is an OS meant for the AMD Athlon64 and all upcoming Intel 6xx processor series...It is meant to run the 64bit applications of tomorrow. This is a fully original Microsoft Windows version and has the features of Windows XP Pro.

It will give you no advantage on your athlon 2200, you need an Athlon64 2800+ at the least.

 

http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/64bit/default.mspx - www.google.com

It's basically Microsoft's Windows XP Professional, making use of the new '64-bit' address-bus archeitecture CPU chips on sale today from manufacturers like AMD and Intel. You can pretty much guess that everything from running multimedia applications to playing games is going to get much faster with the use of a '64-bit' OS.

With almost all current operating systems in use today - we aren't using '64-bit' address bus technology. It's referring to the 32-bit archeitecture, so even though we are using a '64-bit' CPU chip (I'm not so lucky), we aren't really seeing the max power of the chip, because the operating system won't allow it to use an address bus any higher than '32 bits'.

For reasons why I have encapsulated '64-bit', have a read here: http://forums.3dgamers.com/archive/index.php/t-3502

 

here's a page you might like
http://www.pcworld.com/news/article/0,aid,111771,00.asp