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AMD shrinks TDP on Phenom II X3s and X4s
AMD MAY HAVE anticipated its launch of the energy efficient Phenom II and Athlon II processors by a week or so, if some etailers and disties are to be believed.
According to several US and €uroland stockers, the processors are already on pre-order and if you know where to look - Salland.eu, for one - you can start counting your pennies.
There are 6 new processors, plus 2 Opterons which we've left out due to sheer laziness.
On the shallower end of the price pool you've got the Athlon II X2 (Regor) 250, running at a zippy 3GHz, equipped with 512KB of L2 cache per core and 1MB of L3. The packaging is AM3, in case you're wondering, and we hope that means a DDR3-capable memory controller for upgradability. Power is 65W TDP. Pricing in €uroland is a measly €80.
The Athlon II is followed closely by the Phenom II X2 (Callisto), and before you scream "pointless", we have to point out that these sport the same 6MB cache present on the Denebs, while keeping with a slightly lower TDP of 80w. These are numbered the 550 and 545, clocked at 3.1GHz and 3GHz respectively. Budget for an extra €10 to €15 over the Athlon II.
Next come the energy efficient processors, four in all: Phenom II X3 700e, X3 705e, X4 900e and X4 905e. Speeds are 2.4GHz and 2.5GHz respectively, and they all share 65W TDP. This should make them great for businesses and even overclockers due to the favourable C2-stepping silicon.
Apart from the lower TDP, these have pretty much the same specs as the current crop of Phenom II X3 and X4 processors. The 700e and 900e are sold solely as OEM parts for integrators, so you shouldn't be able to find them right away at your retailer, but the 705e and 905e are on pre-order here in €uroland for €118 and €180 respectively.
With AMD encroaching on 30 per cent of the desktop market, according to the IDC stats, Intel is in for a quick squeeze on its "S" series quad-cores. Given the specs and pricing we've seen, the 905e is undercutting Intel's low power CPUs by as much as 25 per cent. µ
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Even a casual AMD follower such as myself has become confused in the multitude of code names and naming conventions. What are the true native dual-core parts (not harvested quad-cores) using the Phenom II architecture, with and without the L3 cache?
..where's the 45W parts? I too am looking to buy something a bit better than ye ol' 5050e.
I wouldn't thing it would drop the voltage automatically. But if you have a BE you can always just drop the voltage down yourself while you're in BIOS adjusting the multiplier no?
Would a 955BE 3.2Ghz, 125W
Drop to 65W (like the 905e) if you reduced the clock to 2.5Ghz?
That's the TDP because is not a native dual-core but rather a quad-core with 2 cores disabled. The 80w of the 550 it's due the present 6MB of l3 cache.
If you compare with the truly native Athlon X2 6000+ Brisbane @89w or the 7850 @95w (another quad with two cores disabled) you can see the advances of using the 45nm process even with two "phantom cores staying there".
I haven't been following AMD processors for a while, but doesn't 65W seem a bit much for some of these?
So where's the AM3 45nm dual-core parts that are speed and cache reduced to make 45W or lower?
And if they are or aren't split voltage only. Methinks AMD is very careful on those split-voltage only parts.
Thnx,
An Opteron board BIOS modder.
( google on kfn5d, 4th hit )
I wouldn't mind some new entry-level 45W chips, say, an Athlon X2 230E @2.6GHz. Should be faster than ye olde 5050E brisbane.
ACP was introduced for the server plattforms in order to better calculate expenses for power, air conditioning etc., TDP is still valid to design motherboards, coolers and so on (which need to be capable of coping with an unrealistic peak power).
Anyway, ACP never made its way into consumer space, probably because it wasn't requested by the OEMs.
AMD is smart, when they had higher TDP, they created ACP, now where is ACP joke?