Core 2 Duo Processor by Intel, an engineering
marvel.
When Intel went to the 45 nana-micron* technology
they opened the door for faster, smaller, lower power consumption processors.
Core 2 means the second in a series of new core
processors, the first was introduced with the Pentium 4 D. Duo means two
processors on the same PCB that used to have only one processor. Quad means four
processors on the same PCB. (PCB means Printed Circuit Board).
Now we are getting twice or four times the bang for our hard earned buck! Hold
on to yer hat I have read where Intel is investigating the possibilities for
eight and sixteen processors on a single PCB.
I upgraded my computer from a Pentium 4 motherboard
to a Core 2 supported motherboard. I chose the E4500 processor, Core 2
Duo that runs at 2.2 GHz. I
chose the 2.2 GHz processor because it was fairly fast and cheaper than the
higher end Duo processors. I did this with the intent of going to a Quad
processor in the near future and did not want to spend the same amount of money
twice. Over time the cost of the Quad processors will drop and be more
affordable for the ordinary user, at this time they are well over five hundred
dollars.
With a built in cache (memory that is incorporated into the processor) each processor has one meg of ram to fetch instructions from. Older processors normally had 256k or 512K (Kilobytes) this is a vast improvement making a
single processor as fast as an older Pentium 4 processor running at 3 GHz, add another processor and you have twice the through put.
Another advantage to the new Core 2 Duo and Quad
processors is the ability to increase the voltage of the processor with out
burning out your processors. This is a big boon for those that like to push
their systems to the max. (I am overclocking my system from 2.2 to 2.5 GHz, this
may not seem like much but that is like overclocking a P4 3.0 GHz to 4 GHz!)
With the features of the motherboard (see my review
of the ASUS P5K motherboard) the processors fly's!
Intel® Advanced Smart Cache, providing a
higher-performance, more efficient cache subsystem. Optimized for
multi-core and dual-core processors. Intel® Smart Memory Access, improving system
performance by optimizing the use of the available data bandwidth.
Intel® Wide Dynamic Execution, enabling
delivery of more instructions per clock cycle to improve execution time
and energy efficiency. Intel® HD Boost
utilizing new SSE4 instructions for even better multimedia performance.
These improvements make the new Core 2 processors
the 'King of the Hill'
*Nana-micron is very small, like 1/1000th the with
of a human hair. This allows the electrons to flow faster and at a lower
voltage, thus the processor runs cooler.
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