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AMD Athlon64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ Review

Manufacturer:	AMD
Title:	AMD Athlon64 X2 Dual Core 4200+ Review
Availability:	Immediately
Author:
Date:	6-8-2005
Price:	$579.00

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There are 3 parts to this review, please use the pulldown below to browse sections or simply hit "Next" at the bottom of each section to continue

Introduction

Today I am reviewing the latest offering from AMD, the Athlon64 X2 Dual Core 4200+. This is one of the first dual core CPUs being offered to the home market. Dual Core CPUs will become the future of computing, what is dual core, and how does it improve the performance of the CPU you ask? Well read on to find out.

Dual Core

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What is dual core? Well to put it simply, a dual core CPU has two separate CPUs on the same chip. It is somewhat like having a two CPU system, with only one chip in the computer. One of the best things about the AMD solution for dual core CPUs is having the memory controller integrated right onto the CPU. This allows the two CPUs to share information between them at a very high speed, without being slowed down by a slower memory BUS. While with Intel's Dual core approach, their two CPUs talk to each other through the Front Side BUS, which is MUCH slower. How does the dual core CPU work? Well look at this diagram from AMD.

As you can see in the diagram, there are two separate CPUs, and each of them has their own L2 Cache. Under the L2 cache is the System Request Interface, this distributes the information between the two cores, so that both CPUs are utilized to their full potential, instead of one being used to the max, while the other waits around for information.

The CPU

The CPU I am reviewing is the Athlon64 X2 4200+, it is the lowest Dual Core CPU made by AMD. It has two separate cores, each of them running at 2200Mhz with a L2 cache of 512KB. It is a Socket 939 CPU, built with the 90nm process. This CPU will work with most 939-socket boards currently out there, but you will need to update the BIOS so that it will support the dual core.

Windows XP detects that there is two cores in the system with this CPU, as you can see from these screen shots of the Windows Task Manager. There are two CPU usage charts on the X2, while only one with an FX-55.

Dual Core

Single Core

In order to get the full usage of second CPU on the dual core chip, the program you are running has to support the usage of two CPUs.