What does virtualization mean to me?

[Sudrien]

Now I've read the Intel Core 2 Duo E4300 review, I'm confused of that processor to get (again).

When the E6300's 4MB cache kicks in, it's another issue. But what about now?


The major difference I see is virtualization. Which I may be able to use... ok, scenario:

The box I build will run Gentoo Linux. 32-bit, for compatibility reasons. Because I'm a web developer, and Wine does not support everything I test on (yet), I install Parallels Workstation, which says it has virtualization support.

So, do things actually go faster on the E6300? And by how much? How is this supposed to work?





Wishing to see 'mATX' and 'P965' in the same sentence without the 'wish',

-Sud.

 

[Sudrien]

And, if it makes any difference, the machine is replacing a Thunderbird. I expect to be blown away.

 

[ultimatebob]

Intel x86 virtualization is mostly done in software rather than hardware right now, although the latest Intel and AMD processors have some virtualization enhancements that aren't being used by most products at the moment. My hunch is that both of the processors that you picked would perform equally.

Personally, I'd use VMWare workstation over Parallels for development, since it allows you to take system snapshots and rollback changes if you screw something up.

 

[AllGamer]

you might find this interesting
http://forums.anandtech.com/messageview.aspx?catid=27&threadid=1975948

read the last message

Core Duo might not be the best thing if your goal is for Virtualization, just be prepare for Bad surprises

 

[willtriv]

Really, VT allows you to run the KVM kernel modules. This allows virtualization on the fly between OS's without modding any OS. It take a perf loss, but thats ok i guess if your xp speed is comparable to half of your c2d speed, its still good enough for webdev stuff

Xen is still faster than KVM, and xen doesnt need VT but it requires quirks to OS's to get them going. KVM just runs em as is.

 

[Aluvus]

The major difference between the E4300 and E6300 isn't virtualization, it's the Front Side Bus. The E6300 has a 1066 MHz FSB to the E4300's 800 MHz.

Cache is the same; E6300 has 2 MB of L2, but the future E6320 will have 4 MB.

 

[Sudrien]

Thank you, everyone.
ultimatebob - I mentioned Parallels because I use it at work (On a P4). It does at least allow you to to zip up your virtual machine as a backup. Of course, P4s have no virtualization.
AllGamer - the links were quite helpful. I didn't even think of memory management.
willtriv - it's Gentoo - I have help. http://gentoo-wiki.com/HOWTO_Xen_and_Gentoo Always try GPL first
Aluvus - hah. I screwed up. Thank you.

 

[AllGamer]

yeah... ironically, after my last Security software patch upgrade (last night), it broke again... dammit, now i have to call and bug the software company to again release another hot-fix for their software, so it can work in the Virtual Environment >.>

I have a feeling I'm going to have to move back to AMD to get away from this problem on the Intel CPUs