So i decided to try the beta of android studio today, but it refuses to run on my 32-bit JRE. I can download the 64-bit JRE, but im not interested in it being my default JRE
In IntelliJ you can specify which SDK to use at project level. go to "File" --> "Project Structure" --> SDKs (list on the left) and you can add/remove paths to different SDKs
Other solution: If you use Windows then I think you can specify JAVA_HOME as system property just for IntelliJ. If you use Linux the solution is similar.