Much Ado About Duos

So let's face it, you can barely browse 3 tech-oriented websites without encountering something about all the dual core goodness. I find it somewhat amusing that the technology has actually been around since the days of IBM's Power4 architecture, but as expected hasn't really become mainstream until recently.

I myself am looking to begin overhauling to a dual core solution some time this summer. Though part of me is Leery that I'll be switching to an all AMD shop. However my work laptop remains an Intel PC.

While the benefits of a dual core solution can be felt in applications that are optimized to work with multicores, overall the net gain isn't something that'll see immediately. Most mainstream users probably won't see much benefit unless they are using their PC's as an HTPC where decoding tasks and the like can be balanced between the two cores.

One of my key concerns though is heat. Packing two cores into a relatively small die is bound to cause some concerns with heat dispersion. I'll hopefully be able to speak more subjectively on the matter when I switch over to an AMD M2 solution in July.