What Is the Difference Between Celeron Pentium D and Dual Core Processors?
The Intel Corporation has been an industry leader in the field of microprocessor design and production since the late 1970s. From its modest beginnings with the 8080 processor to the current 2009 Core i7 Quad core processors, Intel has firmly set the standard for microprocessors. Processor families such as the Celeron, Pentium D and dual core (often referred to as Core 2) have made a long-lasting impression, both in terms of affordability and processing power. Because of their diversity and array of applications, it is important that users understand the differences between these families of processors.
Function
The Pentium D and dual-core processors are multicore processors which, along with the Celeron, helped pave the way for 64-bit computing. These three processors are designed for general multipurpose computing, and all three were targeted towards the home consumer computing market. With their 64 bit instruction sets and support for technologies such as MMX and SSE, these processors function markedly better than their predecessors in the fields of multimedia execution.
Time Frame
The earliest release of these three families was the initial Celeron processor in 1998. The Pentium D and Core 2 processors were released in 2005 and 2006, respectively. The Pentium D is no longer manufactured by Intel as its successor, the dual-core processor, has taken its market share. However, the Celeron still sees sales and architecture improvements, as it is based on a different core design and engineering process. The dual-core processor has been succeeded in 2008 by the Intel Core i7 Quad core processor. However, the dual core still enjoys a respectable market share and is still in production.
Intel Celeron
The Intel Celeron was initially released in April of 1998. This processor utilized a significantly different core architecture and was introduced to the market as a budget processor to compete alongside the Pentium family. Initially, the Celeron processor was released with 32-bit architecture. However, with the release of the Celeron D revision, it has seen 64-bit instruction extensions and even a foray into the dual-core fabrication in certain mobile computing solutions. The success of the Celeron processor was so large, in fact, that it has outlasted the Pentium, its one-time running mate, in the markets as it provided significant processing power at an impressively low price.
Pentium D
The Pentium D processor was released on May 25, 2005. This was Intel's first multicore processor to be released to the consumer market. It is noteworthy to point out that even though the Pentium D was a dual-core processor by name, it was not seen so by design. While the Pentium D did have two cores, they were not connected in any way outside of an external L2 cache. The Pentium D supported the NetBurst architecture and 64-bit computing instructions.
Dual Core
Intel's first true dual-core processor offering was the Core 2 Duo line of processor architectures, so named to signify that the cores did in fact work as a duo with internal hardware connecting the physical cores. The Core 2 Duo was released in 2006 and still enjoys an impressive market share as of 2009. Eventually, Intel released a quad core version of the Core 2 processor offerings, but elected to keep the Core 2 naming scheme due to the similar architectural fabrication processes. The dual core itself has been succeeded by Intel's Core i7 processor family that was released in the fourth quarter of 2008. Though these new processors show significant performance improvements over the Core 2 design, the Core 2 is still manufactured and will take the Celeron's place as a budget performer as prices continue to drop in favor of the Core i7.
Tags: dual-core processor, Celeron Pentium, Celeron processor, dual core, market share