Which CPU are we waiting for to get VM hypervisors in hw?

[Chris Linstid]

The regular Core Duo does have the first phase of VT (Virtualization  
Technology), but it's nothing too impressive.  The next phase from  
Intel of VT will be in their Core 2 Duo chips which have been  
announced and I believe will be available in August.  I think it's  
extremely likely we will see the mobile version (Conroe/Merom, I  
believe) of the chip in new laptops very shortly after that.  As far  
as a rundown on the phases of VT, I wish I could be of more help, but  
I only saw an NDA Intel roadmap about 3-4 months ago and I don't  
remember much of it.

I have a 2.16GHz MacBook Pro and it does virtualization quite well...  
as long as you don't mind slow video.  At the moment, the only game  
in town (at least on OS X) is Parallels Desktop, which does use the  
VT support in the regular Core Duo, but I don't know specifically  
what advantages that gives.

On the Linux side of things, VMware is available (and VMware Server  
is now free!), but from what I've heard, VMware does not currently  
take any advantage of VT support.  However, that doesn't really seem  
to hurt it much.  VMware's product is much more polished and stable  
than Parallels and I'm looking forward to seeing an OS X version of it.

	- Chris

On Jul 30, 2006, at 8:19 PM, Ted Roche wrote:

> It's time to start shopping for a new development laptop. I'm a big  
> fan of big iron: the laptop is my primary workstation and I'd  
> prefer to lug around a 4 kg machine than lack for power. I'm  
> tempted both by the ThinkPad T60p and the MacBookPro. Both run Core  
> Duo.  While I know these are capable of running VMs, I'm hearing  
> that a next generation chip is going to have more capability in the  
> chips to provide more powerful VMs. The technical details are  
> beyond me, but my questions are simple enough: does anyone know  
> what's the timeline on these new chips, and will their delivery in  
> laptops make all that much perceivable difference or are the  
> features more aimed at big iron (8-way and up) machines.
>
> Ted Roche
> Ted Roche & Associates, LLC
> http://www.tedroche.com
>
>
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