Monday, September 1, 2008

Motorola RISC

The Motorola 68060 is much faster than its predecessor, mainly due to higher clock speed, superscalar design, larger instruction and data caches and branch prediction. Under the best conditions the 68060 can execute one integer instruction and one Floating-Point instruction per clock cycle, or up to 2 integer instructions and one branch instruction per clock cycle. Not all integer instructions can be executed simultaneously. Also, the CPU cannot execute the instructions out of order.

Supervisor mode of the Motorola 68060 CPU differs from the 68040 due to changes in exception processing. User mode of the Motorola 68060 is object-compatible with MC68040, assuming that the CPU uses special software to simulate a few instructions that were present in 68040 CPU and are missing in MC68060.
The 68060 CPU uses lower voltage - 3.3 Volt as opposed to 5 Volt for 68040. Lower core voltage directly translates into lower CPU power requirements. For example, 68060 66 MHz dissipates as much power as 68040 33 MHz. In addition to lower voltage the 68060 includes other power-saving features, such as powering down individual chip units when they are not in use, and ability to stop the clock while saving the contents of CPU registers.

What is Quad-Core AMD?

Rapid Virtualization Indexing (RVI) technology is designed to offer near-native performance of virtualized applications while enabling fast switching between virtual machines (VMs.) The VMmark 1.1 consolidation benchmark, released by VMware in May 2008, includes several workloads that take advantage of the benefits of RVI.
Enterprises need specific, useful tools to make informed IT decisions, and the VMware VMmark 1.1 consolidation benchmark is a tool to measure the performance and scalability of platforms running virtualized workloads,” said Brian Byun, vice president of global partners and solutions, at VMware. “We’re pleased that AMD, HP and others continue to participate in and support the VMmark benchmark as an initial indicator of virtualization performance in their products. The VMmark 1.1 benchmark can help enterprises see the value offered by the advantages of the underlying technology innovations delivered by AMD’s RVI technology.”

VMware VMmark 1.1 benchmark measures application performance in virtualized environments on a wide variety of enterprise workloads running simultaneously in separate virtual machines.

AMD today announced it has achieved the top spot on the VMware VMmark virtualization benchmark for x86 servers with the Quad-Core AMD Opteron processor-based HP ProLiant DL585 G5. AMD now holds the top three spots on the 16-core VMmark benchmark.(1) This latest result is further proof that Quad-Core AMD Opteron processors provide a high-performance virtualization solution that allows data center managers to make large-scale virtualization deployments and do so at an attractive price point.

Intel® Core™2 Extreme quad-core processor

When more is better-with four processing cores the Intel Core 2 Extreme processor delivers unrivaled¹ performance for the latest, greatest generation of multi-threaded games and multimedia apps.
Now with a new version based on Intel's cutting edge 45nm technology utilizing hafnium-infused circuitry to deliver even greater performance and power efficiency. The Intel® Core™2 Extreme processor QX9770 running at 3.2 GHz delivers the best possible experience for today's most demanding users.
* 12 MB of total L2 cache * 1600 MHz front side bus
Intel® Core™2 Extreme mobile processorExperience the world's highest performing mobile processor². Bar none. Now you have the performance to play the latest multi-threaded games anywhere, with the Intel® Core™2 Extreme dual-core mobile processor X9000.
* 6 MB of shared L2 cache * 800 MHz front side bus
Now every new Mac ships with an Intel processor. Experience delightful responsiveness from the smallest Mac mini to the most beefed-up Mac Pro. Use one of more than 7,000 universal applications that take full advantage of the Intel chip. Run programs from your PowerPC-based Mac in translation. Powered by Intel chips, your new Mac will do all those things that only Macs can do — and do so at an astonishing level of performance.IntelThe new Mac core
Every Mac uses a chip based on Intel Core technology, the next generation in processor design from the world’s leading chip maker. The result of massive R&D effort involving thousands of engineers. An entire collection of revolutions shrunk into an unimaginably small space, consuming less energy, too. Two cores work together to share resources, and are designed to conserve power when their functions aren’t required. Whether in an ultra-sleek MacBook, or workstation class Mac Pro, Intel Core technology lets you get more power with less power.Mac Pro and Final Cut StudioFour on the floor
And that means pure creative exhilaration with four 64-bit cores inside the new Mac Pro. The Core-based Intel Xeon is so power efficient, that Apple engineers were able to remove the liquid cooling system from the previous Power-PC based model. Which means you can load up the Mac Pro with more cards, more hard drives, more memory. So you can do more with Final Cut Studio, Aperture, Logic Pro, and the growing number of universal applications for creative professionals.Intel Core DuoDual-roar
The Intel Core 2 Duo is actually two processors (cores) engineered onto a single chip — offering virtually twice the computational power of a traditional single processor in the same space. With two cores tightly integrated, increased L2 cache, and a host of engineering breakthroughs, the Intel Core 2 Duo delivers higher performance for all the things you do — from enhancing the family photos to rendering special effects for a feature film.