The Intel Core 2 Duo processor

[Valour]

The Core Duo was a bit of a disappointment to some and a bit of a surprise to others; while it was only 32-bit, it performed exceptionally well while drawing little electricity, but it never saw widespread use as a desktop processor. In August, Intel followed up with the Core 2 Duo, which addresses the 64-bit concern while increasing performance and the overall capabilities of the architecture. The major improvement, though, is the Core 2 Duo's availability in an FC-LGA 775 desktop processor package, which means that you can finally build or buy a reasonably-priced system based on a modern Intel CPU architecture. But is it a significant improvement? And how does it stack up to the AMD Athlon 64 X2? Read on for an analysis of the Core 2 Duo's performance, power consumption, motherboard and RAM compatibility, and a brief overview of the advantage to 64-bit processing.

The Intel Core 2 Duo processor

[Oopla]

When do the quad core chips start hitting the market? I currently have a socket 754 Athlon64 3200+ and I plan to upgrade when the quad core chips start hitting the market.

[Valour]

Soon -- and AMD should be first to market with its "4x4" Athlon 64. I'm going to contact AMD about it this week and see if I can get one to review.

[J.F.]

Of course, Intel is rushing to try to beat AMD with a paper launch of two Core 2 Duo dies in a single package... much like how Intel claims they had the first dual-core CPU out when they stuck two P4 dies in the same package. Intel is famous for doing that. AMD does it properly only to have Intel steal their thunder.

[Valour]

It doesn't look like AMD will have a "Quad Father" 4x4 for me -- very few review units available, and they all go to the bigger sites.

Perhaps it's for the best. I can wait for the second generation Intel and AMD 4-core CPUs and do a better comparison between the two at that time. No one will be able to reasonably afford the first-gen when it hits the market anyway.