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What Is Dual-Core Technology?
The AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 dual-core processor has been
designed to address a key issue with computing today—the increased need
for PC processors to deal with multiple threads of information
simultaneously.
This need manifests itself through the increasing tendency
of PC users to run multiple programs at once, either to multi-task or to
protect their computers with virus/firewall software in the background
while running applications in the foreground.
In addition, more software, especially in the digital
media and content creation space, is being written so that different
aspects of the software can access the processor at the same time. This
type of software is called “multi-threaded” software.
Dual-core processors contain two processing cores,
residing on one chip, that perform calculations on two streams of data
simultaneously. Additionally, the elegant design of the AMD64 architecture
allowed for the planning of dual-core processors from the ground up, which
means that the AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 processor is designed to fit in the same
939-pin infrastructure as single-core processors. All that is required is
a BIOS update, saving our partners the costs of redesigns and obsolete
inventory.
The AMD Athlon™ 64 X2 processor can outperform similar
single-core processors on multi-tasking and digital media benchmarks, on
average by about 15% and 38% respectively.
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