I am considering the purchase of some software (AutoCAD) that requires the CPU to support SSE2. My PC's CPU is an Intel® Core™ i5-650 Processor, which supports SSE4.2. Basically what I am wondering is if SSE4.2 is simply a newer version of SSE2, so that it would be fullly backwards compatible. Thanks.
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For Intel, CPUs that support SSE instructions have always been backwards compatible. It may not be true in the future though. | ||||
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As a little extra info you can use the program CPU-Z to give you information on what your processor supports. Under "Instructions" will be listed the the extended instruction sets supported. Most processors that support a higher set such as SSE4 will also support the previous versions, as each instruction set version is likely to build on previous versions. For example, a model above your processor, note the "SSE(1, 2, 3, 3S, 4.1, 4.2)":
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