Over at newegg.com the specs for some Phenom II processors have the phrase "Virtualization Technology Support: Yes" and similar processors do not use this phrase.

AMD Phenom II X4 945 Deneb 3.0GHz Socket AM3 125W
# Processors Type: Desktop
# Series: Phenom II X4
# L2 Cache: 4 x 512KB
# L3 Cache: 6MB
# Manufacturing Tech: 45 nm
# 64 bit Support: Yes
# Hyper-Transport Support: Yes
# Virtualization Technology Support: Yes
# Model #: HDX945FBGIBOX

AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition Deneb 3.2GHz Socket AM3 125W
# Processors Type: Desktop
# Series: Phenom II X4
# Hyper Transports: 4000MHz
# L2 Cache: 4 x 512KB
# L3 Cache: 6MB
# Manufacturing Tech: 45 nm
# 64 bit Support: Yes
# Hyper-Transport Support: Yes
# Model #: HDZ955FBGIBOX

Why is the virtualization phrase used in some Phenom specs -- do they have any different virtualization features??

No, it's just an omission from the tech specs verbiage due to a lack of consistency of the website. Hardware virtualization is present on all Socket AM2 (or later) Phenoms, Phenom IIs, Athlons, and Athlon IIs. Certain older Semprons lack it - so avoid those if you plan on virtualizing.

You say that virtualization is present on all Socket AM2 chips. I am looking to purchase a Acer Aspire AS5536-5142 NoteBook which has the AMD Athlon X2 QL-65. According the the specs, this is a Socket S1 chip. Would this support virtualization? Also, should I be concerned whether the BIOS needs to also support it?

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/...%20AMQL64DAM22GG.html

Thanks for any help
John

Did you mean QL-64 or QL-65? 'cause you mentioned the second and linked to the first.

Anyway, neither of them supports virtualization. And neither of them are AM2 CPUs. AM2 CPUs are for desktop PCs, these are Socket S1 mobile Athlon X2. Some mobile processors (the Turion range, for example) do support virtualization, but not all. The Athlon X2 QL-6x models don't have it, most of the TK-4x/5x do (except AMDTK55HAX4CT).

Here are specifications for the QL-65:

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/...-%20AMQL65DAM22GG.html

Thanks for the info Heffy.

The specs for the Turion do say that it supports virtualization. But it's odd that this CPU is also a Socket S1g2 as it states is the case for the Athlon X2 QL-6x.

(There should be a link here to the Turion specs. But when I preview my message, I don't see it.)
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/...M77DAM22GG.html


(There should be a link here to the Athlon)
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/...L65DAM22GG.html

(The link you included took me to "page not found" error)

Newegg appears to have seven laptops with the Turion.

(There should be a link here to Newegg Turion products)
http://www.newegg.com/Product/...c=turion&Page=1


The lowest priced one is the Toshiba Satellite L505D-S5992 at $600. It comes with 3Gb Ram and a 320GB disk. Too bad I can't get the Acer Aspire AS5536-5142. It comes with 4GB and a 650GB disk for just $500.

I wonder if there are some better options for a laptop that supports virtualization.

Also do you know if there could be a problem with the BIOS not supporting hardware-assist virtualization?

John

Yep. An extra space was the reason it gave this error. Here's the correct address :

http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/...-%20AMQL65DAM22GG.html

Personally I stay away from Acer, I've often seen their laptops being outlasted by Compaq, ASUS, etc...

The latest laptop I bought was an ASUS F5Z with a QL-62 and 4GB of for about $600. There was an RM-72 variant for about the same price, but with 2GB of RAM.
So, these are the prices in general. You may find some lower prices, the key-word here is digging...

As to your last question, personally I don't know as I've never been confronted to such a problem. The CPU has to support virtualization in the first place, options in the BIOS just enables or disables it. Maybe some vendors disable it by default.

Here's some info that may be of some use, even though it concerns Linux:

http://www.redhat.com/docs/en-...xtensions_in_BIOS.html

Hope it helps.

Thanks again,


Have you confirmed for sure then that the QL-62 does NOT support virtualization? There seems to be a bit of confusion in these forums about whether the AMD site is correct or not when it says the QL-6x and other Athlon CPUs do NOT support virtualization.

QL-62 specs:
http://products.amd.com/en-us/...=65nm+SOI&f8=&f9=False

Well, actually a comment at CPU world deepens even further the confusion. A guy states the QL-62 does have AMD-V. On my laptop, it's disabled, though, and I haven't investigated the matter in depth... I'll have a look at it as soon as I have some time to waste.