Minus a few apps with 5-8% differences, the performance of the E4600 is about the same as the E6600. You get this at much lower watts and price, which is great. The only other difference is Virtualization Technology. What is that exactly? It doesn't seem to effect many benchmarks, but is it important otherwise?
Thanks,
Chris
Is Virtualization Technology important?
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
...and besides the E4600 is 200MHz FSB with 2MB shared Cache and the E6600 is 266MHz FSB with 4MB shared Cache.
About VT: http://www.intel.com/technology/platfor ... /index.htm
About VT: http://www.intel.com/technology/platfor ... /index.htm
Virtualization technology is used primarily in large, enterprise environments in which a fixed set of hardware can be shared to run multiple operating systems.
For the casual home user, VT can be found in setups where you want to run/test multiple OSes without having to shut down your PC. To accomplish this you need to run some virtualization software that allows you to create virtual machines (VMs).
Two commonly available VM software are VMWare server and Microsoft's Virtual PC (I think the latest version goes by a different name, maybe it's called Virtual Server 5.0?). Both are free. I'm partial to VMWare because of its better support for non-MS operating systems.
For the casual home user, VT can be found in setups where you want to run/test multiple OSes without having to shut down your PC. To accomplish this you need to run some virtualization software that allows you to create virtual machines (VMs).
Two commonly available VM software are VMWare server and Microsoft's Virtual PC (I think the latest version goes by a different name, maybe it's called Virtual Server 5.0?). Both are free. I'm partial to VMWare because of its better support for non-MS operating systems.
Intel's VT and AMD's SVM are extensions to the x86 architecture that allow virtualization solutions such as VMware and Xen to run much more efficiently. They introduce a third protection mode called guest mode and introduce a new trapping mechanism for instructions running in this mode that require host intervention or emulation.
Virtualization allows the user to run multiple operating systems or multiple OS instances simultaneously by providing each with the illusion of exclusive control. It's useful more running non-native applications (e.g. Windows applications on a Linux machine), testing cross-platform compatibility during application development, evaluating upgrade paths on production machines, and, most prominently, consolidating multiple server roles onto a powerful machine.
There are two types of hardware virtualization (as opposed to OS virtualization and runtime virtualization, which aren't relevant to VT/SVM): full virtualization and para-virtualization. The former runs unmodified guest operating systems that have no idea they're not running on bare metal. The latter requires the OS to be ported to a slightly different architecture and "cooperate" with the underlying hypervisor, allowing for greater efficiency.
Both VMware and Xen are capable of operating in both full- and para-virtualization modes. However, because of Microsoft's licensing restrictions, Xen can only virtualize Windows guests in full-virtualization mode and only on machines equipped with VT/SVM. Using either solution in either mode, machines with VT/SVM will perform better than those without it. Para-virtualization with VT/SVM is therefore the most efficient combination.
Even if you have never heard of virtualization before, it's possible that you could be using it shortly. Enterprise application vendors are increasingly looking to "virtual appliances" as an alternative to packaging their application for particular operating systems. Instead of installing the application on your host OS, you simply boot the virtual appliance from your virtual machine monitor. It comes with its own pre-configured and specialized OS already baked into the disk image.
In short, VT is more of a feature than a performance enhancement, although it's definitely both. But the bigger difference between the models you're considering is the L2 cache. You can never have enough cache, but it can be pricey, as you can see. $80 for 2MB of cache seems a little steep to me, but not completely unreasonable.
Virtualization allows the user to run multiple operating systems or multiple OS instances simultaneously by providing each with the illusion of exclusive control. It's useful more running non-native applications (e.g. Windows applications on a Linux machine), testing cross-platform compatibility during application development, evaluating upgrade paths on production machines, and, most prominently, consolidating multiple server roles onto a powerful machine.
There are two types of hardware virtualization (as opposed to OS virtualization and runtime virtualization, which aren't relevant to VT/SVM): full virtualization and para-virtualization. The former runs unmodified guest operating systems that have no idea they're not running on bare metal. The latter requires the OS to be ported to a slightly different architecture and "cooperate" with the underlying hypervisor, allowing for greater efficiency.
Both VMware and Xen are capable of operating in both full- and para-virtualization modes. However, because of Microsoft's licensing restrictions, Xen can only virtualize Windows guests in full-virtualization mode and only on machines equipped with VT/SVM. Using either solution in either mode, machines with VT/SVM will perform better than those without it. Para-virtualization with VT/SVM is therefore the most efficient combination.
Even if you have never heard of virtualization before, it's possible that you could be using it shortly. Enterprise application vendors are increasingly looking to "virtual appliances" as an alternative to packaging their application for particular operating systems. Instead of installing the application on your host OS, you simply boot the virtual appliance from your virtual machine monitor. It comes with its own pre-configured and specialized OS already baked into the disk image.
In short, VT is more of a feature than a performance enhancement, although it's definitely both. But the bigger difference between the models you're considering is the L2 cache. You can never have enough cache, but it can be pricey, as you can see. $80 for 2MB of cache seems a little steep to me, but not completely unreasonable.
-
Schlotkins
- Posts: 278
- Joined: Thu Mar 27, 2003 5:30 am
Virtualization extremely simplified:
With Virtualization you can run 2 operating systems at the same time.
So you can run linux together with windows at the same machine at the same time.
Programs like VMWare do benefit a lot from those virtualization instructions in the processor. If you don't run vmware you won't notice that you haven't got them
With Virtualization you can run 2 operating systems at the same time.
So you can run linux together with windows at the same machine at the same time.
Programs like VMWare do benefit a lot from those virtualization instructions in the processor. If you don't run vmware you won't notice that you haven't got them
Two other uses for virtual machines:
1) Alowing you to run multiple versions of a program that won't let you install multiple versions at once. (e.g. MS Office does not work quite right if you install multiple versions. It also has some problems with compatability between versions, so you can't necessarily use just one version if you need to exchange files with people who use various versions. Using a virtual machine you could have one VM image for each version of Office that you need. Then if somebody you work with has Office 2000 - you edit their documents with Office 2000. If somebody else has Office XP, you use the Office XP VM to edit their stuff.)
2) You can use a VM to run/test programs that you either don't use regularly, or aren't sure you want to use day to day. One of the things that eventually destabilizes/slows down Windows is installing (and uninstalling) software. Using VMs for trying out new programs, or for running things that aren't that important (e.g. games) or that you don't use often, you can help keep Windows running longer between reinstalls.
(Tax software would be a good example of something might do this with - not highly demanding of computer, use it only occasionally, and prevents potentially damaging Windows by installing/uninstalling a new version every year.)
If a VM goes bad - just replace the disk image file with a backup, and
you are back in business (no need to mess with disk imaging programs).
1) Alowing you to run multiple versions of a program that won't let you install multiple versions at once. (e.g. MS Office does not work quite right if you install multiple versions. It also has some problems with compatability between versions, so you can't necessarily use just one version if you need to exchange files with people who use various versions. Using a virtual machine you could have one VM image for each version of Office that you need. Then if somebody you work with has Office 2000 - you edit their documents with Office 2000. If somebody else has Office XP, you use the Office XP VM to edit their stuff.)
2) You can use a VM to run/test programs that you either don't use regularly, or aren't sure you want to use day to day. One of the things that eventually destabilizes/slows down Windows is installing (and uninstalling) software. Using VMs for trying out new programs, or for running things that aren't that important (e.g. games) or that you don't use often, you can help keep Windows running longer between reinstalls.
(Tax software would be a good example of something might do this with - not highly demanding of computer, use it only occasionally, and prevents potentially damaging Windows by installing/uninstalling a new version every year.)
If a VM goes bad - just replace the disk image file with a backup, and
you are back in business (no need to mess with disk imaging programs).
Lots of games don't need 3D hardware. (And even if current systems don't virtualize 3D - no reason that can't be fixed in future.)floffe wrote:Running a game in a VM would kill graphics performance, though, since that's not virtualised.scdr wrote:Using VMs for trying out new programs, or for running things that aren't that important (e.g. games) or that you don't use often, you can help keep Windows running longer between reinstalls.
I think we're comparing the wrong processors here. Why consider the older, overpriced E6600 when you can get an E6550 that runs at nearly the same core speed (and faster FSB) for significantly less coin?butters wrote:You can never have enough cache, but it can be pricey, as you can see. $80 for 2MB of cache seems a little steep to me, but not completely unreasonable.