Short for Physical Address Extensions, PAE is a memory management extension that enables a 32-bit Intel (IA-32) compatible processor to address more than 4 GB (232) of physical memory. PAE was first released in 1995 with the introduction of the Intel Pentium Pro and today is supported in all recent processors and operating systems.

PAE * Supports > 32-bit physical addresses

Computer acronyms, Memory terms

If you want to detect if your computer supports PAE, the Windows Sysinternals Coreinfo utility can detect PAE and other processor information. If supported, Coreinfo would have the line shown below.

  • Memory (RAM) help and support.
  • Complete information about PAE from Microsoft.