The quad core chips that will first replace dual cores are going to merge two dual core dies into a two-die, four-core package OR one die with four cores. Confused? We'll explain it in plain English.

How to make "alt+s" submit that forum reply once more.

We're back to evaluate our predictions and reassess the the situation in the world of AMD

According to Intel marketing, the new Core 2 Duo architecture is the wave of the future, and we have no doubt that this capable CPU design is here to stay. We take a closer look at what it offers and what's to come.

An unbiased and rational look at why we have such strong feelings about certain companies.

Today, it is becoming evident that the hardware industry as a whole will be abandoning traditional DDR memory in the not too distant future. AMD's latest revision to the K8 architecture incorporates a new DDR2 memory controller, a new socket design and some other pleasant surprises. Short-Media will be turning another page in the K8's history, and will be taking an in depth look at AMD's new Socket AM2 platform.

What we're going to discuss, the terms we'll use, and a few feature descriptions.

Starts with discussions of power, heat and cooling, OC in a nutshell, and the HTT bus. Continues with the math you'll need, CPU Multipliers, CMOS, bus locking, memory modules and timings. Ends with a discussion of CPU stepping codes, CPU selection, the Mobile Athlon 64, and other hardware.

The tools you'll need: Prime95, OCCT, Memtest86+, CPU-Z, A64 MemFreq 1.1, AMD64 MaxTCase, Monitoring Tools, Clockgen, A64 Tweaker, and several benchmarking products.

Steps 1 & 2: Qualifying your system, and finding the maximum CPU clock. We'll also do some longer-term stability testing.

Step 3: Finding the maximum memory clock at the best possible timings. Know your memory! Then we'll look at stability in the operating system, which is very different than surviving a benchmark.

Step 4: Balancing memory and CPU clock. We select a safe maximum CPU and memory clock with long-term stability testing. We conclude with benchmarking and some final thoughts.

"What Athlon do I buy?" To begin to answer that question here is a compiled list of all the current platforms and brief outlines for each including my personal recommendations for what's hot and what's not.

A dual core processor is exactly what it sounds like. It is two processor cores on one die essentially like having a dual processor system in one processor.