Dual core processors have already made their way into the high end word station and server market in a big way, but have been slower to crack into the consumer market and are often relegated to those looking to upgrade to very fancy machinery.
One of the factors that comes into play is that much of the software available just doesn't take advantage of this technology, whereas high performance systems have had it for a little while now.
With the release of 64-bit windows and now video card manufacturers making their cards capable of utilising multi-core processors and hopefully soon, gaming software to support it dual-core processors are coming into their own, slowly, but surely.
AMD and Intel take quite different routes to doing the dual-core processor thing, which can be read about in the article at pastas. Both are bitter rivals, plugging away at their own technology to get as much as they can from their processors.
AMD has introduced Cool 'n' Quiet technology which effectively clocks a processor down when it is not being used heavily, so its clock speeds are lower. When the computer starts using more resources the clock speeds and voltages are returned closer to their normal levels, until they reach normal levels somewhere near 100% system demand.
The processor beats out the Pentium D 840 in all of the system tests that are performed and does so using less power, which is of great concern to those running hundreds of computers in a corporate environment, but probably less to most home users.
64 bit operating system and software also made a big difference, allowing even faster speeds with this new technology.
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