Intel Core Duo

[gaf at blu.org (Jerry Feldman)]

On Mon, 26 Mar 2007 17:33:02 -0400
"Mark J. Dulcey" <mark at buttery.org> wrote:

> The short guide to Intel and 64 bits:
> 
> 1. All Core 2 series chips are 64-bit.
> 
> 2. All Pentium D chips are 64-bit.
> 
> 3. The Core Duo and Core Solo (not to be confused with Core 2 Duo) are 
> NOT 64-bit capable. They're really revised versions of the Pentium-M, 
> which was based on the same microarchitecture as the Pentium 3. These 
> are mostly found in laptops, though there were a few desktop systems, 
> notably the first generation of Intel-based iMac and Mac Mini.
> 
> 4. The Pentium-M and Pentium 3 are not 64-bit.
> 
> 5. To the best of my knowledge, no Celeron to date has 64-bit 
> capability. Eventually, Intel will likely shut down production of all 
> CPUs not based on the Core 2 architecture, and will start making Core 2 
> Celerons; those will presumably be 64-bit capable unless they choose to 
> disable it on purpose. (Also note that the somewhat misleadingly-named 
> Celeron D is NOT a dual-core processor.)
> 
> 6. SOME Pentium 4 chips are 64-bit capable. This is where you'll have to 
> check the individual chip number.
> 
> As for virtualization support, I believe that all Core 2 series chips 
> have it. Some of the previous generation of Xeon chips (the Pentium 4 
> variants designed for servers) also did. So far as I know, other Intel 
> chips don't. Virtualization is possible on CPUs that lack the special 
> support (VMware has been doing it for years), but it won't run quite as 
> well.
I do agree with most of what you are saying, but while I don't have time
to look things up right now, some of the Pentium D processors were not
64-bit. Additionally, the older Xeon chips were 32-bits. The Core Solo
series are actually dual core with one processor disabled. Last year I
navigated through the Intel and AMD web sites to research the roadmaps
because of a statement that both Intel and AMD were going to stop
production of 32-bit chips in 2006.  I've got to leave, but I'll look
it up later. 
-- 
Jerry Feldman <gaf at blu.org>
Boston Linux and Unix user group
http://www.blu.org PGP key id:C5061EA9
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