Does it make the computer faster? And how are they different from 8 and 16-bit video game consoles?
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A computer “thinks” about one number at a time (not really true, but this is ELI5).
On an 8-bit computer, that number can only go up to 255. On a 16 bit computer, that number can go all the way up to 65,535. On a 32 or 64 bit computer, it can go much, much higher.
This limits a lot of things the computer can do. An 8 bit computer might only be able to show 256 (or fewer!) colors on-screen at a time, which is not very many. A 32 bit computer can show millions.
If the computer can only count to 255 it might only be able to hold 255 different things in memory at once (not very many!). 32-bit Windows could use a maximum of 4GB of RAM, because that’s how high it could count. 64-bit Windows could theoretically use *billions* of GB of RAM.
(This is all very simplified, 8-bit systems had lots of ways to count higher than 255. But again, this is the ELI5 version.)
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