New features in Core 2 Duo

Intel’s new flagship Core 2 Duo has replaced the aging Pentium Line of processors. The Core 2 Duo brings a wave of new technology and other enhancement along with it. The Core 2 Due processors have kept the backward compatibility as far as possible with the existing hardware and software available. Though these older hardware and software will not be able to take advantages of the new features of the processors they will continue working as they were using the Pentium Processors. Some of the existing mother boards, especially the Intel LGA775 for Pentium D/EE processor, are capable of accepting the Core 2 Duo processors with a BIOS upgrade.

Another feature which is of great interest is the capability of running more than one operating system simultaneously by creating virtual machines. Each of these virtual machines act as an independent machine, sharing the physical hardware, having their own operating system and running their own application, with absolute independence to the other virtual machines. The technology which was till now available only on high end servers has now reached the desktop, thanks to the Core 2 Duo Processor. The Core 2 Duo processors have incorporated new security features bringing the Trusted Platform Modules also known as TPM, to the common PC as against its availability on only high end PC earlier. With the advent of Core 2 Duo processors the TPM has become a standard feature on all types of PC. The TPM provides secure storage of passwords, login ids, and personal data fully encrypted and absolutely safe from viruses, spywares, hackers and identity theft.

Intel has not left the note books high and dry after the merger of Pentium-D and Pentium-M processors in the Core 2 Duo product line. The stripped down version of the Core 2 Duo processors named as Allendale and Merom has been launched with features like lower power consumption for increasing the battery life in notebooks. There is compromise in the L2 Cache but this has been done to reduce the power consumption using the same processor core. The Allendale processor comes with a 2 Mb L2 Cache in place of the usual 4 Mb L2 cache on the Conroe processor. The Merom processors have reduced power consumption making it suitable for notebook usage.  The L2 Cache on Core 2 Duo processors is based on Intel’s patented Advance Smart Cache architecture. The two cores of the Core 2 Duo processors has to practically fight with each other to get Cache allocation and this delivers optimum cache utilization and performance from the processor.

The Wide Dynamic Execution feature provided on the new Core 2 Dup processor has conveniently allowed the execution of four instruction in each clock cycle in comparison to the three instruction executed by the previous architecture called NetBurst.  This means faster processing and more raw power to the processor in absolute terms. To counter Intel’s Core 2 Duo processors, AMD is preparing its new flagship for the desktops in the form of “4x4” chip which is supposed to have 4 cores in place of 2 cores the Duo 2 Process or has. However Intel has already released the Quad Core processors for the servers and very soon it will have the quad core on the desktops too. The WAR is on.