[wplug] Core duos?

[Patrick Wagstrom]

Richard Farina wrote:
> Interestingly enough I see very few Core Duos anymore, mostly I see Core 
> 2 Duos.  Now this is an important distinction as I understand it because 
> the Core 2 Duos are 64-bit and the previous ones were not.  Also I don't 
> recall about the Core Duos but I believe that all Core 2 duos have the 
> cpu virtualization extentions as well.

Despite the similarity in names, Core Duos and Core 2 Duos are very 
different beasts.  The Core 2 Duo is a new microarchitecture, think of it 
as an evolutionary setup from 486 -> Pentium.  Yes, it's that big.  Where 
as the Core Duo was basically two processors stuck together on the same 
piece of silicon, the Core 2 Duo actually has some real integration between 
the processors.

I don't think that Intel has gotten the full integration for the Quad core 
chips, at least not like AMD has in the Phenom line.  Of course, they're 
not in any hurry to do so as Phenoms can come match the current Intel lines.

--Patrick