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selnor on 29 September 2012
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Adinnieken said:

If the processor is 8-core then it isn't x86, it's x64. 

If I'm not mistaken, an x86 processor can't access more than  4GB of memory.

So you can either have 4GB of RAM and an x86 processor, or you can have 8GB of RAM and a x64 processor. 

Also, it's doubtful that it's an AMD-based processor.  If anything, as defined before in the Microsoft literature, it would be a multi-core processor with many different types of processor cores.  That way, you'd have a set of cores dedicated to the game code, and a secondary set reserved for specific functions of the game code or hardware (i.e. Kinect). 

This would allow the core gaming processors to deal with rendering the game, while you may have a dedicated processor for AI, Kinect, etc., ensuring expensive, powerful CPU cores aren't wasted on doing menial tasks that would otherwise waste CPU cycles on.

It is commonly claimed that 32-bit processors and operating systems are limited to 4 GB of RAM,[1][2] and that this is a primary cause of the "3 GB barrier". This is not a true limit of these processors. Almost all modern x86 processors (from the 1995 Pentium Pro onward) can in fact already address up to 64 GB RAM via physical address extension (PAE).[3] PAE is a modification of the protected mode address translation scheme. It allows virtual or linear addresses to be translated to 36-bit physical addresses, instead of the 32-bit addresses available without PAE.[4] The CPU pinouts likewise provide 36 bits of physical address to the motherboard. [4]

Many x86 operating systems, including any version of Linux with a PAE kernel and some versions of Windows Server, support the use of PAE to address up to 64 GB of RAM on an x86 system.[5][6][7]

Use of PAE to address RAM above the 4 GB point is key to breaking the "3 GB barrier". There are, however, factors that limit this ability, and lead to the "3 GB barrier" under certain circumstances, even though the processor fully supports PAE.