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Intel and AMD's 2005 Plans Revealed
Takemedown writes "There's a good article on CTZ that talks about Intel and AMD's plans. Intel, continuing on their 18-month chipset refresh rate, will introduce their Glenwood and Lakeport chipsets for the Smithfield dual core desktop microprocessor in 2005. The chipsets will support SATA II, Matrix RAID and a higher system bus speed for the new Pentium 4 name holder.
As far as Intel's dual core strategies are concerned, they will most likely bring their dual core additions by the very end of Q2 or Q3 this year, so for those waiting for these next generation chips are better off with a due upgrade. Secondly, if you are hoping for a noticeable performance gain in regular computing tasks are in for a disappointment. Dual core microprocessors are for those who like to do multitasking or work on multithreaded applications. For example, if you are gaming and burning a DVD at the same time, dual core chips will come in handy and will definitely give a smooth computing experience."
Is it more efficient memory sharing amongst the different cores?
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Oh will they? Consider what frequency these chips will be running at... You won't be getting dual cores featuring core frequencies along the lines of current top end CPU's anytime too soon. This should tell people that gamers would be much better off sticking to their single core guns... If they want to encode and game at the same time, there computing experience is most definetly going to have to be compromised.
There is no other way about this considering current limitations... As the fab processes are refined and application of technology is perfected, we will see dual cores running at higher frequencies, but there are considerable improvements which will need to be made before dual core can be referred to as a formiddable gaming option for new releases at the top end of the system spectrum. (they might not even be formidable until the unlikely circumstance when gaming authors start coding for multicore platforms on a large scale)
For MANY people with top end single core systems currently, the move to dual cores will not immediately present what would be considered a smooth computing experience - there will be noticeable deficincies in various areas, the severity of which will be determined by the specific way their system is utilized.
Overclockers