Core Concepts - Other Improvements
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The new architecture also features many new improvements, such as Wide Dynamic Execution, Smart Memory Access and the Advanced Digital Media Boost. Wide Dynamic Execution is an enhancement of Dynamic Execution which first featured in the P6 architecture. Wide Dynamic Execution is exactly as the name implies - wide, delivering an increased number of instructions processed per cycle. The addition of a technique called macrofusion enables common x86 instructions to be combined to further speed up execution. Smart Memory Access is an enhancement that reduces the performance losses caused by false aliasing, or incorrectly assuming that a load and store operation is accessing the same memory location. Smart Memory Access cuts down on false aliasing by using a newly developed algorithm that examines memory access to determine how load and stores commit to execution.
Advanced Digital Media Boost optimizes SSE3 (Streaming SIMD Extension) instructions that accelerate a broad range of applications including video, complex arithmetic and games. Intel has added 13 new instructions that enable these instructions to be executed at double the speed of previous generations - one per clock cycle.
The Core architecture also sees the introduction of EM64T support to its dual core range. It debuted for Intel with the Prescott line of Pentium 4 processors, but was left out, to the disappointment of some, of the Core Duo. EM64T enables the processor to address more than 4GB of both virtual and physical memory to improve performance.
All in all, Core is set to carry Intel into the next decade of processor design and manufacture. It looks like the architecture has the solid foundations that will enable Intel to scale not by clock speed, but by the number of cores and the efficiency and power consumption of its chips. Intel has gained the crown of the microprocessor industry and looks set to hold onto it for the time being, but with AMD quietly working on a new architecture of its own, how long will it be able to retain it?
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