intel core

The Core 2 brand refers to 64-bit dual-core CPUs with the eighth-generation Core architecture (of Intel's x86 microprocessor), which evolved from the 32-bit Yonah mobile processor. The Yonah comprised of two interconnected Pentium Ms (descendants of Pentium III) packaged, as a single die (piece) silicon chip (IC). Core 2 marked a relegation of the Intel's Pentium brand to a lower-end market, and a reunion of Intel's notebook and desktop product lines split by the 2003 release of Pentium M (paralleling Pentium 4).The Core 2 brand was launched on July 27, 2006 branching off as Duo (dual-core), Quad (quad-core), and Extreme (dual- or quad-core CPUs with higher speeds and unlocked multiplier). The brand covers CPU (with the core) named "Conroe" and "Allendale" (dual-core for higher- and lower-end desktop use, respectively), "Merom" (dual-core for mobile use), "Kentsfield" (quad-core for desktops), and their variants named "Penryn", "Wolfdale" and "Yorkfield". Although the "Woodcrest" core CPUs for servers are also based on Core architecture, they are marketed under the Xeon brand. The first Core 2 Duo processors were fabricated on 300 mm wafers using a 65 nm manufacturing process.Unlike the NetBurst architecture of Pentium 4 or Pentium D branded processors, the Core architecture does not stress extremely high clock speeds, but rather improvements in the processor's usage of both available clock cycles and power. This translated into more efficient decoding stages, execution units, caches, and buses, etc, reducing the Core 2 CPU's power consumption, while enhancing their processing capacity. With a TDP of up to only 65 W, the Core 2 dual-core Conroe consumed only a half of power, and was more capable compared to its predecessor double core Pentium D 9xx Presler (65 nm) or 8xx Smithfield (90 nm) desktop chips, with a TDP of up to 130 W(a high TDP requires many noisy cooling fans or a more expensive noiseless cooling system).Intel Core 2 processors featured Intel 64 (also known as EM64T), Virtualization Technology (except T5500 or lower end E4x00), Execute Disable Bit, and SSE3. Core 2 also introduced SSSE3, Trusted Execution Technology, Enhanced SpeedStep, and Active Management Technology (iAMT2).Typically for CPUs, the Core 2 Duo E4000/E6000, Core 2 Quad Q6600, Core 2 Extreme QX6800, QX6700 and QX6800 CPUs were affected by bugs, but apparently minorKentsfield is a quad core CPU branded as Core 2. The top-of-the-line Kentsfields were Core 2 Extreme models numbered QX6xx0, while the mainstream ones branded Core 2 Quad were numbered Q6xx0. All of them featured two 4 MB L2 caches. The first Kentsfield, named Core 2 Extreme QX6700 (product code 80562) and clocked at 2.67 GHz, was released on November 2, 2006 at US$999. The mainstream Core 2 Quad Q6600, clocked at 2.4 GHz, was launched on January 08, 2007 at US$851 (reduced to US$530 on April 7, 2007). A high-end OEM-only Core 2 Extreme QX6800 Kentsfield, clocked at 2.93 GHz, was launched in limited quantities on April 8, 2007 at US$1,199. July 22nd 2007 is a date of release of the next Core 2: Quad Q6700 and Extreme QX6850 Kentsfields at US$530 and US$999 respectively, and also price reduction of Core 2: Quad Q6600 and Extreme QX6800 Kentsfields to US$266 and US$999 respectively.The Kentsfield (like Pentium D branded CPUs) comprised two separate silicon pieces, called dies, in one package constituting its core. Each of Kentsfield's two dies was dual-core with the Core architecture, as did each die constituting alone every Core 2's dual-core only CPU. So, the Kentsfield's "quad" core was actually "double dual-core", because of a result of "gluing" two dual-cores together. Hence, the max. power consumption (TDP) of the Kensfield (QX6800 - 135 watts, QX6700 - 110 W, Q6600 - 105 W) was approx. double of its similarly clocked Core 2 Duo counterpart. For example, the QX6700 consisted of two E6700 chips connected together by a 1066 MT/s FSB on one MCM, resulting in lower costs but less bandwidth to the northbridge. The Kentsfield was one socket processor sitting in a LGA775 socket, as well as Core 2 Duo (AMD Quad FX consisted of two dual-core processors in two separate sockets on one motherboard with a 2 x 125 W= 250 W TDP).A quad-core CPU, like the Kentsfield, processes very well with multi-threaded applications (typical for video editing, ray-tracing, or rendering), where its processing ability may approach double that of an equally clocked dual-core CPU comprising each of its halves. However, it can never double the processing ability of each of its constituent halves (e.g. of Core 2 Duo in case of the Kentsfield), due to a loss of performance resulting from connecting them (i.e. sharing the narrow memory bandwidth, and operating system overhead of handling twice as many cores and threads). Single or dual-threaded applications alone, including most games, do not benefit from the second pair of cores of a quad-core CPU over an equally clocked dual-core CPU. Kentsfield's relatively small increase in FSB and processor speed over Core 2 Duo's does not alone boost the overall performance for those applications, however a high-speed, low latency RAM might bump up the numbers. Nevertheless, a simultaneous use of several processor-demanding single/dual-threaded applications on a quad-core CPU will see a dramatic overall performance increase over an equally clocked dual-core CPU. A quad-core CPU is useful also to run the both client and server processes of a game without noticeable lag in either thread, as each instance (up to four) could be running on a different core.