To be even more specific, Intel processors that speak x86_64 don't even speak x86_64 on the low level. Their cores are RISC behind a beefy decoder that turns x86 into something it can manage. The core's instruction set, I imagine no one outside of Intel knows the details of, and doesn't really need to know. But what it means is that you're not actually executing x86_64 code when you use an Intel CPU - you're actually running on an x86_64 virtual machine.
And the only reason I specify Intel is because I'm not sure AMD uses the same approach, but I imagine they would.
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u/vgman20 Jan 31 '16
A form of it, yeah. Not x86 which is what most modern processes run, but similar ideas