Monday, June 11, 2007

Dual-core Processors

What are dual-core processors?
A dual core processor is two processor cores on one die, essentially like having a dual processor system in one processor.

How will shifting to dualcore help?
The problem with winding up clock speeds is heat. High heat means errors. The heat comes from power. It takes a lot of juice to crank up a processor to high clock speeds and a processor with that much electricity running around the die is prone to electrical noise, akin to interference. The pathways on a processor are very close together. More power running through these pathways means there will be electrical radiation from one pathway to the next. This leakage could corrupt the data, and corrupted data means errors.

Where can I find a dualcore processor?
Expect to see dual-core desktops in India soon!

Why do we need dual-core processors?
A properly-configured dualcore system will react quicker when lots of applications are running simultaneously. The OS can manage which applications are sent to which processor core—so if one core is encoding a TV show, the OS can send your command to open up a Web browser to the second CPU core. In short, a dual-core processor will make your PC multi-task better.

When was the first dualcore processor launched?
The first dual-core processor was IBM’s Power4 chip in 2001, beating Intel’s Pentium Processor Extreme Edition 840 by a few days.

Who manufactures dualcore processors?
Most major chip manufacturers, including AMD and Intel, are in the dual-core race.

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