The additional 64-bit general purpose registers are named r8-r15. There are also 8-bit (rXb), 16-bit (rXw), and 32-bit (rXd) subregisters that map to the least significant 8, 16, or 32 bits of the 64-bit register. The original 8 general purpose registers have also been extended to 64-bits: eax, edx, ecx, ebx, esi, edi, esp, and ebp have new 64-bit versions called rax, rdx, rcx, rbx, rsi, rdi, rsp, and rbp respectively. The old 32-bit registers map to the least significant bits of the new 64-bit registers.

New 8-bit registers are also available that map to the 8 least significant bits of rsi, rdi, rsp, and rbp. These are called sil, dil, spl, and bpl respectively. Unfortunately, due to the way instructions are encoded, these new 8-bit registers are encoded the same as the old 8-bit registers ah, dh, ch, and bh. The processor tells which is being used by the presence of the new REX prefix that is used to specify the other extended registers. This means it is illegal to mix the use of ah, dh, ch, and bh with an instruction that requires the REX prefix for other reasons. For instance:

add ah, [r10]

(NASM syntax) is not a legal instruction because the use of r10 requires a REX prefix, making it impossible to use ah.

In 64-bit mode, an additional 8 SSE2 registers are also available. These are named xmm8-xmm15.

By default, most operations in 64-bit mode remain 32-bit; operations that are 64-bit usually require a REX prefix (one bit in the REX prefix determines whether an operation is 64-bit or 32-bit). Thus, essentially all 32-bit instructions have a 64-bit version, and the 64-bit versions of instructions can use extended registers “for free” (as the REX prefix is already present). Examples in NASM syntax:

mov eax, 1  ; 32-bit instruction

mov rcx, 1  ; 64-bit instruction

Instructions that modify the stack (push, pop, call, ret, enter, and leave) are implicitly 64-bit. Their 32-bit counterparts are not available, but their 16-bit counterparts are. Examples in NASM syntax:

push eax  ; illegal instruction

push rbx  ; 1-byte instruction

push r11  ; 2-byte instruction with REX prefix

Results of 32-bit operations are implicitly zero-extended to the upper 32 bits of the corresponding 64-bit register. 16 and 8 bit operations, on the other hand, do not affect upper bits of the register (just as in 32-bit and 16-bit modes). This can be used to generate smaller code in some instances. Examples in NASM syntax:

mov ecx, 1  ; 1 byte shorter than mov rcx, 1

and edx, 3  ; equivalent to and rdx, 3

For most instructions in 64-bit mode, immediate values remain 32 bits; their value is sign-extended into the upper 32 bits of the target register prior to being used. The exception is the mov instruction, which can take a 64-bit immediate when the destination is a 64-bit register. Examples in NASM syntax:

add rax, 1           ; optimized down to signed 8-bit

add rax, dword 1     ; force size to 32-bit

add rax, 0xffffffff  ; sign-extended 32-bit

add rax, -1          ; same as above

add rax, 0xffffffffffffffff ; truncated to 32-bit (warning)

mov eax, 1           ; 5 byte

mov rax, 1           ; 5 byte (optimized to signed 32-bit)

mov rax, qword 1     ; 10 byte (forced 64-bit)

mov rbx, 0x1234567890abcdef ; 10 byte

mov rcx, 0xffffffff  ; 10 byte (does not fit in signed 32-bit)

mov ecx, -1          ; 5 byte, equivalent to above

mov rcx, sym         ; 5 byte, 32-bit size default for symbols

mov rcx, qword sym   ; 10 byte, override default size

The handling of mov reg64, unsized immediate is different between YASM and NASM 2.x; YASM follows the above behavior, while NASM 2.x does the following:

add rax, 0xffffffff  ; sign-extended 32-bit immediate

add rax, -1          ; same as above

add rax, 0xffffffffffffffff ; truncated 32-bit (warning)

add rax, sym         ; sign-extended 32-bit immediate

mov eax, 1           ; 5 byte (32-bit immediate)

mov rax, 1           ; 10 byte (64-bit immediate)

mov rbx, 0x1234567890abcdef ; 10 byte instruction

mov rcx, 0xffffffff  ; 10 byte instruction

mov ecx, -1          ; 5 byte, equivalent to above

mov ecx, sym         ; 5 byte (32-bit immediate)

mov rcx, sym         ; 10 byte instruction

mov rcx, qword sym   ; 10 byte (64-bit immediate)

Just like immediates, displacements, for the most part, remain 32 bits and are sign extended prior to use. Again, the exception is one restricted form of the mov instruction: between the al/ax/eax/rax register and a 64-bit absolute address (no registers allowed in the effective address). In NASM syntax, use of the 64-bit absolute form requires [qword]. Examples in NASM syntax:

mov eax, [1]    ; 32 bit, with sign extension

mov al, [rax-1] ; 32 bit, with sign extension

mov al, [qword 0x1122334455667788] ; 64-bit absolute

mov al, [0x1122334455667788] ; truncated to 32-bit (warning)

In 64-bit mode, a new form of effective addressing is available to make it easier to write position-independent code. Any memory reference may be made RIP relative (RIP is the instruction pointer register, which contains the address of the location immediately following the current instruction).

In NASM syntax, there are two ways to specify RIP-relative addressing:

mov dword [rip+10], 1

stores the value 1 ten bytes after the end of the instruction. 10 can also be a symbolic constant, and will be treated the same way. On the other hand,

mov dword [symb wrt rip], 1

stores the value 1 into the address of symbol symb. This is distinctly different than the behavior of:

mov dword [symb+rip], 1

which takes the address of the end of the instruction, adds the address of symb to it, then stores the value 1 there. If symb is a variable, this will not store the value 1 into the symb variable!

Yasm also supports the following syntax for RIP-relative addressing:

mov [rel sym], rax  ; RIP-relative

mov [abs sym], rax  ; not RIP-relative

The behavior of:

mov [sym], rax

Depends on a mode set by the DEFAULT directive, as follows. The default mode is always "abs", and in "rel" mode, use of registers, an fs or gs segment override, or an explicit "abs" override will result in a non-RIP-relative effective address.

default rel

mov [sym], rbx      ; RIP-relative

mov [abs sym], rbx  ; not RIP-relative (explicit override)

mov [rbx+1], rbx    ; not RIP-relative (register use)

mov [fs:sym], rbx   ; not RIP-relative (fs or gs use)

mov [ds:sym], rbx   ; RIP-relative (segment, but not fs or gs)

mov [rel sym], rbx  ; RIP-relative (redundant override)

default abs

mov [sym], rbx      ; not RIP-relative

mov [abs sym], rbx  ; not RIP-relative

mov [rbx+1], rbx    ; not RIP-relative

mov [fs:sym], rbx   ; not RIP-relative

mov [ds:sym], rbx   ; not RIP-relative

mov [rel sym], rbx  ; RIP-relative (explicit override)

Usually the size of a memory reference can be deduced by which registers you're moving--for example, "mov [rax],ecx" is a 32-bit move, because ecx is 32 bits. YASM currently gives the non-obvious "invalid combination of opcode and operands" error if it can't figure out how much memory you're moving. The fix in this case is to add a memory size specifier: qword, dword, word, or byte.

Here's a 64-bit memory move, which sets 8 bytes starting at rax:

mov qword [rax], 1

Here's a 32-bit memory move, which sets 4 bytes:

mov dword [rax], 1

Here's a 16-bit memory move, which sets 2 bytes:

mov word [rax], 1

Here's an 8-bit memory move, which sets 1 byte:

mov byte [rax], 1