TechTAK Again

  • Thread starter Thread starter Raven Mill
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Raven Mill

Okay folks...this is short notice, but I HAVE to ask...

I will be doing a phone interview with the PR manager for the Core2 Duo from
Intel for this week's TechTAK.

What questions, if you were doing the interview, would you ask?

And please, I could really use some INTELLIGENT questions, not just the "Why
arn't yer intel chips as gudd as the amd chips?" Because, to be honest, I
have them both and the Core2 Duo WAILS on the Athlon64 X2 4800... by a LONG
shot. And that's not even taking into consideration the thermal problems
that AMD has.

So give me some questions...y'all got about 8 hours before the call is
made...
 
How is Hyperthreading applied? If I have 2 dual core processors and enable
hyperthreading, will I have 4 or 8 logical processors?
 
This probably qualifies as quasi-intelligent at best (maybe just plain dumb,
since it's still a comparison thing). But AMD is talking about having
quad-core chips out by 2007. Does Intel have any plans along those lines?
 
Raven Mill, will any of these questions help you out?

1. My new Core 2 Duo machine is backordered because the E6600 I ordered was
delayed a week in releasing. What was the hold up for the E6600 and E6700?

2. What is the cornerstone of Core technology and what problems with
NetBurst does Core technology solve?

3. How is VT detected and enabled?

4. Is VT the same in the Core 2 as it is in the Core or have there been
enhancements in Core 2? If yes, what enhancement?

5. When is the hypervisor active in VT and when is it not?

6. I have problems with turning off VT in Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 beta.
If I create a Linux virtual machine that uses the most recent kernels (2.4
and 2.6) I have timer interval issues (runs too fast). Older kernels are
OK.

7. (Follow up to 6) If I turn off VT for Linux vm's that have the timer
interval issue things are fine, but if I restart the vm VT is turned back
on. It's supposed to stay off. Have you heard reports like this with Core
cpu's and Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 beta?
 
I don't know who your audience is, but another topic that might be worth
bring up centers around how the Extreme products are different in the Core 2
Duo. In previous products it seemed to center around faster FSB, larger
cache, and HyperThreading (the latter apparently extint in Core 2?). To look
at some current specs it seems to be just about clock speed.
 
I'm not sure I'm following what your saying. Core2 Duo
is so much more than raw clock speed. It seems to me
Intel has actually been emphasizing the overall structure/
performance of the chip and not so much the clock speed.

-Michael
 
They have redesigned the microarchitecture. Netburst is gone. The two big
issues center around messaging on the chip and power consumption. AMD's
hypertransport technology was so much more efficient than the Pentium
technology that Intel had to respond.
 
Hyperthreading is gone.

Alan Simpson said:
I don't know who your audience is, but another topic that might be worth
bring up centers around how the Extreme products are different in the Core
2 Duo. In previous products it seemed to center around faster FSB, larger
cache, and HyperThreading (the latter apparently extint in Core 2?). To
look at some current specs it seems to be just about clock speed.
Click to expand...
 
Gary G. Little said:
How is Hyperthreading applied? If I have 2 dual core processors and enable
hyperthreading, will I have 4 or 8 logical processors?
Click to expand...

This one is being asked with "Is hyperthreading being killed off
completely?"

None of the core2 duos have hyperthreading.

and to answer your question: If you have 2 PentiumEE (Extreme edition)
processors, which is dual core with hyperthreading, you have 4 logical
processors.
 
Good question. Thanks...added it to the list.

Alan Simpson said:
This probably qualifies as quasi-intelligent at best (maybe just plain
dumb, since it's still a comparison thing). But AMD is talking about
having quad-core chips out by 2007. Does Intel have any plans along those
lines?
Click to expand...
 
Hey Colin...I'll add the first 4, as they're pretty basic.

5, 6 & 7 are actually more OS questions than the hardware guy will probably
want to answer.

I'll run them by him, though, in case he has any thoughts on it.
 
Hi Alan.

Actually, I had that one thought of. I asked that question with:

"After looking at Intel's website on the info for Core2 Duo comparisons and
not really seeing anything obvious, what is the difference between the Core2
Duo and the Core2 Duo Extreme, other than a posted less-than 300MHz clock
difference?"

Good enough?
 
Right. They have actually redesigned everything, as far as I can tell,
though I really am not an engineer, nor do I pretend to understand the
engineering of it, to be much closer to the way AMD does theirs, hence one
of my questions being for him to explain what the benefit of a 2.66GHz Core2
Duo is over a PentiumD 2.66GHz is.
 
Thanks folks. You have impressed me with NOT doing the "d00d. AMD is
bettah!" type of things.

Okay folks...here are the questions so far:

--------------------------------------------------
We know that Celerons were the cooler-running, value-minded chip from the
Pentium series, so will there be an incarnation of this series with the core
architechture?

Is Core like Centrino, Xeon and Itanium in that it is a different chip
design itself, and not just a tweak on numbers from Pentium, and will it be
replacing Pentium entirely?

The later Pentium 4's brought around the usage of LGA-775, (or Socket T)
and, as techies, we love that the chips are lasting longer than the
motherboard sockets rather than bending pins on the chip. Are there any
changes planned to make the socket more resiliant than the 10-20 chip-change
lifetime now expected? Will this socket or style of socket be around for
quite a while with the Cores?

The Presler core pushed the technology onto 65nm processes, is there
substantial work in the 40-45nm area yet, since we've seen some mumblings
from the RAM and semi-conductor manufacturers?

Is hyper-threading on its way out entirely?

Core 1 had both a Solo and a Duo, both aimed at laptops. Is there any
difference between those and the desktop market, and will the desktop market
have a Solo? If not, will the mobile version see usage in mini-itx and dumb
terminals, etc?

How will buying a Core2duo system instead of an AMD64-X2 system be better
for me?

Are there anymore CPUs in this series that will be limited to 32-bit only?
If not, what do you see as the future (or lack thereof) for 32-bit systems?

After looking at Intel's website on the info for Core2 Duo comparisons and
not really seeing anything obvious, what is the difference between the Core2
Duo and the Core2 Duo Extreme, other than a posted less-than 300MHz clock
difference?

Is there an advantage to Execute Disable Bit over AMD's Enhanced Virus
Protection or do they basically do the same thing?

I noticed that the clock speeds of the new Core2 Duos are far lower than the
how the PentiumD was rated. What, for instance, is the difference now
between a Core2 2.66GHz CPU and a PentiumD 2.66 GHz CPU?

AMD is talking about having quad-core chips out by 2007. Does Intel have any
plans along those lines?

My new Core 2 Duo machine is backordered because the E6600 I ordered was
delayed a week in releasing. What was the hold up for the E6600 and E6700?

What is the cornerstone of Core technology and what problems with NetBurst
does Core technology solve?

How is VT detected and enabled?

Is VT the same in the Core 2 as it is in the Core or have there been
enhancements in Core 2? If yes, what enhancement?

When is the hypervisor active in VT and when is it not?

I have problems with turning off VT in Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 beta. If I
create a Linux virtual machine that uses the most recent kernels (2.4 and
2.6) I have timer interval issues (runs too fast). Older kernels are OK.

(Follow up to 6) If I turn off VT for Linux vm's that have the timer
interval issue things are fine, but if I restart the vm VT is turned back
on. It's supposed to stay off. Have you heard reports like this with Core
cpu's and Virtual Server 2005 R2 SP1 beta?
-------------------------------------------
 
Michael:

I meant how the "Core 2 Extreme" products are different from the "Core 2
Duo" products. I haven't looked at this stuff in depth yet. But unlike in
the Pentium series, where the Extreme products seemed to have several things
over the "mainstream" products, in Core 2 the only difference appears to be
clock speed. The FSB speed and cache are the same in the Extreme/non-Extreme
products. I'm wondering what else, if anything, is different about a Core 2
Extreme as opposed to a Core 2 Duo.
 
You can tell them that I am not happy at all that my 2-3 Month Old Dell XPS
600 is already obsolete, Just FYI. They should have been working with Dell
in order to Guarantee Upgrade Compatibility, Just FYI. It now looks like I
will have to Upgrade my NVIDIA Nforce 4 SLI Intel Edition Chipset to a
NVIDIA Nforce 590 SLI Chipset Intel Edition, Just FYI (Getting a BIOS
Compatibility Upgrade from Dell is not likely, considering the fact that the
Dell XPS 600 is now Discontinued, Just FYI).
 
Hmmm...
Don't see where that has anything to do with Intel. Sounds more like a
problem of you having sunk low enough to buy a Dell. But that's just mu
opinion of Dell. As a computer shop owner with our own line of systems,
which DO come with that promise of "within the "less-than 6-month"
obsolescense replacement" ...

We had a discussion about that very thing on the show a couple weeks ago.
Most people decided that it's the SYSTEM MANUFACTURER'S problem, not the
chip manufacturer, as the Core2duo was announced quite awhile ago, you
should have already known that it was being released if your system is only
2-3 months old. Dell sure did.
 
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