Does the Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 feature Virtualization technology?

[NFS4]

I was looking for a Core 2 Duo processor/motherboard combo to replace the flaming hot 2.66GHz Pentium D in my HP Pavilion a1606n Desktop.

I ran across this Intel Core 2 Duo E4500 Allendale processor at Newegg for $130. It lists that the processor supports Virtualization technology as do a few other sites.

Intel's product page, however, makes no mention of Virtualization support:

http://processorfinder.intel.c...tails.aspx?sspec=sla95

Intel does make specific mention of Virtualization support for the E6550:

http://processorfinder.intel.c...tails.aspx?sspec=sla9x

Is this just an undocumented feature of the E4500 or do Newegg (and others) have it wrong?

 

[Aluvus]

To the best of my knowledge, no it does not. Chris Hare and the heavily-policed Wikipedia page indicate that it does not. It would be very unusual for Intel not to mention it on the Processor Finder page if it did.

 

[NXIL]

According to this on Intel's web site, no virtualization:

http://www.intel.com/products/...duo/specifications.htm

Virutalization support starts with the E6300.

 

[sonoma1993]

I have the same question as NFS4 but about an AMD processor instead. Which of the AMD processor's have the virtualization technology? My computer currently has the Amd Athlon 64 X2 4200+ 90nm 65w AM2 processor.

 

[jonmcc33]

It has been well known since the release of the 4 series Core 2 Duos that they lack IVT.

 

[NXIL]

I think that all AMD socket AM2 CPUs, at least rev F and beyond, include virtualization.

http://www.amd.com/us-en/Corpo...104_543~108605,00.html

Windsor, Brisbane: all virtualize:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Athlon_64_X2

and

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/P...ualization_.28AMD-V.29

AMD's virtualization extensions to the 64-bit x86 architecture is named AMD Virtualization, abbreviated AMD-V. It is still referred to as "Pacifica", the AMD internal project code name.

AMD-V is present in all K8 AMD (Athlon 64) processors from stepping "F" and all newer processors support AMD-V technology. This applies for all current Socket AM2 and Socket F processors.

HTH

NXIL

 

[jmmtn4aj]

Why is it required, anyway? I'm curious..

 

[NXIL]

Hi JM,

it's not required; but, there are some cool virtualization resources out there now--say you are running XP, but, you are getting tired of it picking up malware while browsing, etc: create a virtual XP machine, browse with that--if it gets crapped up, no big deal, because all the crapware is gone when you close that virtual machine....you can then create another one, etc.

Or, run XP and Linux in virtual machines on the same machine.

For servers, since CPUs are so powerful now and have multiple cores, instead of having say 4 physical servers to do 4 things: say email, a SQL database, web serving, etc, just get one physical machine and create 4 virtual servers on it--that way instead of the powerful CPU running at 1% all the time, it gets more fully employed, you save space, energy, cooling costs, and, maintenance time as well.

Here is a good reference from VMware:

http://www.vmware.com/virtualization/

http://www.vmware.com/overview/why.html

HTH

NXIL



From Wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtualization

Virtualization examples

The following examples illustrate applications of virtualization.

Server consolidation

Virtual machines are used to consolidate many physical servers into fewer servers, which in turn host virtual machines. Each physical server is reflected as a virtual machine "guest" residing on a virtual machine host system. This is also known as Physical-to-Virtual or 'P2V' transformation.

Disaster recovery

Virtual machines can be used as "hot standby" environments for physical production servers. This changes the classical "backup-and-restore" philosophy, by providing backup images that can "boot" into live virtual machines, capable of taking over workload for a production server experiencing an outage.

Testing and training

Hardware virtualization can give root access to a virtual machine. This can be very useful such as in kernel development and operating system courses.[2]

Portable applications

Certain application configuration mechanisms such as the registry on the Microsoft Windows platform lead to well-known issues involving the creation of portable applications. For example, many applications cannot be run from a removable drive without installing them on the system's main disk drive. This is a particular issue with USB drives. Virtualization can be used to encapsulate the application with a redirection layer that stores temporary files, Windows Registry entries, and other state information in the application's installation directory ? and not within the system's permanent file system. See portable applications for further details. It is unclear whether such implementations are currently available.

Hardware virtualization technologies

* Intel Vanderpool x86 virtualization
* AMD Pacifica x86 virtualization
* Sun UltraSPARC T1 hypervisor
* IBM Advanced POWER virtualization

 

[jmmtn4aj]

NXIL, I meant required by the OP Anyway, wow! Thanks for all the info. I have to admit that until now I thought virtual OSes would work on any old x86 processor, that it didn't require specific hardware support

 

[NXIL]

Hi JM,

ah, nothing like a long answer to a mis-read question

Older processors can run virtualization software, so I think the virtualization they add now is like adding instruction sets: SSE3, the new SSE4, etc--SSE4 is for video encoding I think, but, of course CPUs without that can do video processing.

http://www.vmware.com/support/...all_requirements2.html

NXIL

 

[quikah]

Hardware virtualization support adds additional instructions to the CPU to deal with virtual machines, it is mostly about memory mappings AFAIK. Example, say you have 2 Windows VMs, both want to address the same page of memory. Only one can actually address it, so you need to be able to re-map the memory pages to another page and but tell both Windows VMs that they have the same memory address. The hardware support lets the CPU do this for you or you can write your own implementation of this in the hypervisor or you can make the OS aware of this (this is called para-virtualization).

Xen needs this to run Windows OS's, you can run Linux guests on Xen without the hardware if you para-virtualize them.

VMware does not use the hardware support in 32-bit guests. Their software implementation is faster than the hardware one. They need to use the hardware for 64-bit OS, I believe because the VMware kernel is 32-bit.

I should really know this stuff better, use it everyday...

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: NXIL
For servers, since CPUs are so powerful now and have multiple cores, instead of having say 4 physical servers to do 4 things: say email, a SQL database, web serving, etc, just get one physical machine and create 4 virtual servers on it--that way instead of the powerful CPU running at 1% all the time, it gets more fully employed, you save space, energy, cooling costs, and, maintenance time as well.

So instead of having 1 computer running 1 version of Windows, which eats 500mb of ram, you get to run 4 copies of Windows, pay for 4 licneses instead of 1, and throw 2gb of ram down the drain. This is a good thing?

 

[NXIL]

So instead of having 1 computer running 1 version of Windows, which eats 500mb of ram, you get to run 4 copies of Windows, pay for 4 licneses instead of 1, and throw 2gb of ram down the drain. This is a good thing?

512 mb ram = $13.99:

http://www.newegg.com/Product/...x?Item=N82E16820141188

For servers: Linux: Free.

http://www.centos.org/

or

http://www.freebsd.org/

or

http://www.openbsd.org/

35 pages from Microsoft on how to pay for your virtual machine licenses: priceless.

download.microsoft.com/download/6/8/9/68964284-864d-4a6d-aed9-f2c1f8f23e14/virtualization_whitepaper.doc

 

[ShawnD1]

But you're still not explaining how running 4 copies of Linux is faster than just having 1 copy of Linux doing 4 things.

 

[quikah]

It is not faster, it is more flexible. HA, Disaster Recovery, Patch management, server consolidation, development/testing, etc.

This is a pretty good demonstration of what you can do with the Enterprise VMware product (a big commercial, but it is pretty cool):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWf_WiaFedc

 

[ShawnD1]

Thanks for the video, it answers everything. Very impressive technology.

 

[undeclared]

e4xxx no virtualization
e6xxx has

 

[piasabird]

Virtualization is what exactly? It is software.

We run a virtual mainframe, or use to at least, on an IBM Dual PIII X Server. We ran IBM Mainframe OS on top of a SUSE Linux Server.

 

[myocardia]

Originally posted by: piasabird
Virtualization is what exactly? It is software.

We run a virtual mainframe, or use to at least, on an IBM Dual PIII X Server. We ran IBM Mainframe OS on top of a SUSE Linux Server.

I don't think you understand what the difference would be between running a virtual OS on an E4500, and running one on an E6400. The E6x00's and E6x50's have hardware virtualization acceleration. So, let's say that you're running a virtual OS on the E4500 (which it will do). You'd get ~2/3 the performance virtually, that you'd get from that E4500, if you weren't running the OS virtually. With the E6x00's, you'd get very close to 100% of the performance, even though the OS was virtual.

 

[ShawnD1]

Originally posted by: myocardia

Originally posted by: piasabird
Virtualization is what exactly? It is software.

We run a virtual mainframe, or use to at least, on an IBM Dual PIII X Server. We ran IBM Mainframe OS on top of a SUSE Linux Server.

I don't think you understand what the difference would be between running a virtual OS on an E4500, and running one on an E6400. The E6x00's and E6x50's have hardware virtualization acceleration. So, let's say that you're running a virtual OS on the E4500 (which it will do). You'd get ~2/3 the performance virtually, that you'd get from that E4500, if you weren't running the OS virtually. With the E6x00's, you'd get very close to 100% of the performance, even though the OS was virtual.

I guess this would explain a lot of the lag in Windows Vista. If you go to task manager, the "virtualization" box is checked for the majority of processes.

 

[quikah]

Originally posted by: myocardia
I don't think you understand what the difference would be between running a virtual OS on an E4500, and running one on an E6400. The E6x00's and E6x50's have hardware virtualization acceleration. So, let's say that you're running a virtual OS on the E4500 (which it will do). You'd get ~2/3 the performance virtually, that you'd get from that E4500, if you weren't running the OS virtually. With the E6x00's, you'd get very close to 100% of the performance, even though the OS was virtual.

Don't trust the marketing hype so much. These first versions of hardware virtualization (Intel VT and AMD Pacifica) aren't exactly great. Remember the S3 Virge 3D "Accelerator"? Just as a reference, VMware doesn't use hardware virtualization for 32-bit guest OS and can achieve near native performance in ESX.