Smithfield core set for an update

Written by Tim Smalley

July 21, 2005 | 16:13

Tags: #dual-core #em64t #pentium #pentium-d #presler #smithfield

Companies: #intel

According to a report on top UK technology news outlet, The Register, Intel are set to sample an updated core revision for its dual-core Pentium D and Pentium Extreme Edition 840 processors next month, ahead of commercial availability on 21st October.

The core stepping will be updated from its current A-0 to B-0 which will also lead to a change in CPUID too - from F44 to F47.

Thus far, there are no specific details of what the new core revision will bring to the table. However, we suspect that some, if not all of the 7 (out of a total of 52) bugs in the A-0 core, that Intel have labelled as fixable with a new core revision, will be fixed with the B-0 core.

We believe that the fixes will include prevention of crashes that are occuring when programmers attempt to switch the dual-core chip in to a processor that resembles its single-cored siblings, while also fixing some teething problems with Intel's EM64T 64-bit addressing architecture.

It's unlikely that there will be any new models added to the 800 series with this new core revision - they are not expected until early next year when Presler debuts on Intel's 65-nanometre node.

Along with the shift to 65-nanometres, we understand that Presler will also add support for Intel's Virtualisation Techology.

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