[SATLUG] Core 2 Quad for how much?!

[Daniel J. Givens]

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Geoff wrote:
> According to my gurus, over in Spring.. that's the 'stripped down,
> Celeron version' of a Core 2 Quad.
> 
> not really 4 cpu's on one die, rather a pair of dual's, sharing some of
> the same circuitry.

The AMD quad-core processor has four cores on a single die, each with
independent L1 and L2 cache. The Core 2 Quad line is two Core 2 Duo's
sharing enough to go in a single socket. That is the solution, not a
watered down cheap version. The Core architecture is just more efficient
than the AMD K8 and probably the K8L as well. Technologically, the AMD
solution is more sophisticated, but the Intel solution works faster.

> I also found out something interesting about 64-bit processing... while
> there might be some 64-bit OS's out there, and -limited- 64-bit
> applications, as soon as the 64-bit CPU sees 32-bit code, it reverts
> (aka: falls-back-to) to being a 32-bit processor.

That doesn't make sense to me. For the 64-bit processors that can run
32-bit binaries, they would "fall back" to 32-bit for that binary, but
they wouldn't be able to suddenly switch all operations to 32-bit and
still run 64-bit binaries. I could be completely wrong because that is
what I reasoned in my head based on no concrete knowledge of the way
x86_64/em64t processors actually work. I've run 64-bit linux and run
32-bit firefox for flash and java as well as 32-bit mplayer for w32codec
support. Things ran fine, though it was a headache to maintain 32-bit
libraries and such.

> Some of the true 64-bit processors will stop cold, dead-in-its-tracks,
> if it comes across even one line of 16-bit code.

Maybe, but not the x86-64 or em64t. 16-bit DOS and Windows apps won't
run under x64 versions of Windows, but that's because the compatibility
layer for it was taken out.

> There's no 'standard', therefore there's still a myriad of options. 
> Options are good and permit a huge variety of marketing possibilities,
> but a few -less- options could steer us in a straighter path.

The market has standardized on x86 and x86-64/em64t. We have either
Intel or AMD to realistically choose from for laptops, desktops, and
most servers. We are seeing competition between Intel and AMD, but I
don't think the back and forth we see is a bad thing.

Bed time...

Daniel
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