[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,   
> 
> Right, but we weren't talking about the AMD.

I was giving a contrast between the two. There was a whole paragraph
after that.

> The stripped down, celeron version of it is the heart of this
> discussion, and it's ~~$330

By saying "the celeron version" of the Core 2 Quad, that would suggest
that there is another that is designed differently. From everything I've
read, every Core 2 Quad from the desktop line to the Xeons use this
design. There is no better version.

>>> 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'm, just repeating what I was told by someone who works in the
> industry.  The millisecond a 64-bit cpu sees a line of 32-bit code, the
> cpu reverts back to 32-bit

For the 32-bit code, it uses 32-bit compatibility mode, but there is
little difference in performance for x86-64/em64t processors. The
Itanium is a different story, but it's a different architecture
altogether. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itanium#Architectural_changes)

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