Rmaia said:
I hear from one of my friends that just moved from intel to amd that its biggest weakness is amd's multitasking just isnt like intels. However, maybe this will change with the x2's
It already has. AMD's X2s own Intel's Dual Core processors. Unfortunately, they're also a bit more expensive.
One of the reasons for the AMD's Dual Cores being better is that the two AMD cores talk to each other faster. Imagine that one core wants to meet the other core. The AMD core will go out the door, take 5 steps, and be at the other core's doorstep. In contrast, the Intel core will go out, take a walk 'round the block, and then get to the other core's doorstep.
. Thats just one of the advantages, the X2s also benefit from the shorter pipelines just like the single-core AMDs.
Also, the Pentium-Ds have to share one memory bus. Pentium-Ds are much more bandwitch-hungry than AMDs, thus they're essentially strangling eachother fighting for access to that one bus. X2s have a bus dedicated to each of the cores. Not only that, but AMD's don't need the bus as much as the Pentium-Ds do.
So in the end, X2s are better than Pentium-Ds even at tasks that the single-core Pentium 4s were better at than single-core Athlon 64s.