Hi, I just got a core 2 6750 setup the other day and I was wondering if I needed to install the MS Hotfix for XP. I know i had to do that and download some AMD drivers for my X2, so just wanted to know if it was the same for the core 2s.
Athlons have a bug in their design (because they're not true dualcores, but just two singlecores sandwiched together).
This means they have two timestamp counter registers in the CPU, instead of one. When you query the timestamp counter, you get the counter of the core you're currently running on. In various situations the two counters can get desynchronized, and software that uses this timer for synchronizing things will get confused, because the timer will appear to jump back and forth all the time.
Ironically even though Intel did a 'quick hackjob' on their Pentium D, and AMD boasted that theirs was a 'true dualcore', Intel did not have this problem.
In short, no Intel processor needs any kind of fix. I can only hope that the Barcelona doesn't need it either. It's an ugly hack that resets the timers through software periodically.
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