Intel Pentium D 820 and Pentium 4 670 Review
 

The dual core processor is what I consider the next major technological step in the evolution of the processor. With the exception of the bit-size increases which are major steps as well, all the other improvements to the processors have increased performance (for single processors) and have added in a few features. The dual core processor focuses on something other than single application performance, which is multiple application performance. At least for Intel, the clock speeds of the new dual cores are clocked lower than that of their top single core chips. This means that unless Intel includes some sort of new efficient clock speed technology, the performance of their fastest dual core chip for a single-thread application should be lower than that of their fastest single core chips. The dual cores are meant to handle multi-tasking, multi-threaded applications, and multiple simultaneous applications much better than a single core chip.

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