Sunday, August 17th 2008
AMD Athlon 64 2000+ for Immediate Competition with Intel Atom
While AMD touted the Bobcat as a definitive competitor to Intel Atom, being a low-power K8 based part with the same design advantages its ancestors had over competing Intel parts when they made up for higher performing alternatives, this part won't make it until next year, enough time for the Atom to gain a stronger foothold in the market. As immediate competition to the Atom, AMD seems to have set an Athlon 64 2000+ single core processor as its ULPC / UMPC processor part. This processor is single core, features a 1.00 GHz clock-speed and 256 KB of L2 cache, which should still give it a performance edge over a 1.50 GHz Atom judging purely by the fact that the Atom isn't based on the Core micro-architecture (yet) and uses an older design.
This processor is based on the Lima core, what's most surprising is that it is found to operate at 8 W at its 1.00 GHz frequency which brings it into the Atom platform's energy domain. The second most surprising point is that this processor will be aided by the powerful AMD 780G core logic (chipset), as opposed to current Atom platforms using a i945G adaptation that has significantly higher thermal envelope as opposed the AMD 780G while being a lot slower (in terms of graphics performance and features). Tom's Hardware conducted a comparison between the two and found that the Athlon-780G combo "knocks-out" Atom-i945G technologically.
The AMD 780G uses a fraction of the power i945G uses and makes up for several features the i945G lacks. The only drawback as of now is that AMD hasn't quite been able to reduce the board footprint of these parts. Despite having double the TDP to that of Atom, at 8 W, the Athlon chip still remained comfortable with passive cooling. This opens up a new round of competition, of that between Athlon and VIA Nano which claims to have higher levels of performance / watt over Intel Atom. The first picture shows the processor itself, the second one shows the processor seated on a AMD 780G based motherboard made by Gigabyte, where the processor is made to be cooled by the stock AMD AM2 cooler with the fan removed, to study the effects of passive cooling on the processor.
Source:
Tom's Hardware
This processor is based on the Lima core, what's most surprising is that it is found to operate at 8 W at its 1.00 GHz frequency which brings it into the Atom platform's energy domain. The second most surprising point is that this processor will be aided by the powerful AMD 780G core logic (chipset), as opposed to current Atom platforms using a i945G adaptation that has significantly higher thermal envelope as opposed the AMD 780G while being a lot slower (in terms of graphics performance and features). Tom's Hardware conducted a comparison between the two and found that the Athlon-780G combo "knocks-out" Atom-i945G technologically.
The AMD 780G uses a fraction of the power i945G uses and makes up for several features the i945G lacks. The only drawback as of now is that AMD hasn't quite been able to reduce the board footprint of these parts. Despite having double the TDP to that of Atom, at 8 W, the Athlon chip still remained comfortable with passive cooling. This opens up a new round of competition, of that between Athlon and VIA Nano which claims to have higher levels of performance / watt over Intel Atom. The first picture shows the processor itself, the second one shows the processor seated on a AMD 780G based motherboard made by Gigabyte, where the processor is made to be cooled by the stock AMD AM2 cooler with the fan removed, to study the effects of passive cooling on the processor.
75 Comments on AMD Athlon 64 2000+ for Immediate Competition with Intel Atom
I guess they've been in aus for a few years now, is this vishy thing new?
AMD does advertise decently enough much more than what Intel does over here. They even have
"Technology partner AMD" at the end of some of the popular TV serials.
edit-As far as the cooking goes, men don't start learning cooking here until they have to start living by themselves. The mother generally cooks.
Pentium D heat up more AFAIK but a C2D and C2Q won't heat up as much as a x2 but the puma seems to be pretty cool.
I saw two laptops side by side in an exhibition which were probably on all day, One was a compaq and the other HP. The Hp with a C2D(T5850 I think) was running Vista with all drivers installed while the compaq a QL-60 running XP with no drivers. The HP was burning hot to touch even in the palm rest area while the compaq was warm even at the bottom.
A great game that ive had working on almost ANY machine that ive ever touched - Unreal Tournament - software mode anyone???
even if you install it to play by yourself & not on a LAN - its still a good few hours of wreckless stupidity so long as u have tons of mods & maps to burn through.
probably the lowest spec machine ive come across which ive games on is a really really really really really really supremely really really old knakerd IBM thinkpad - I think it was running a PII at 166-200Mhz with 8mb RAM & a build in Trident (II???) 2mb G.card
running a ton of skin mods loads of extra maps & a Dennis Leary sound mod....
I had a fun 12hr shift at work that day lol - I even had a mate pop in & take have a go on the laptop. but the only bad thing was the cooling vents & cooling fan was all clogged up with dust so I didnt need any central heating turned on.
I lacked the tools & the time to take the laptop apart but then again it wasnt my laptop to begin with :toast::toast::toast::toast:
but yeah if we were to start someplace - Lemmings - Worms - Quake - Strike (I loved that game on my DX II)
omg...quake - damn i had fun running that across the college network along with U.T & having campus Vs. campus tournaments (even though we were told we werent allowed to run games across the network) but for both U.T & Quake i was either 1st or 2nd place out of 10+ people. then i would start getting hungry & my scores would plummet... :confused:
its happend at LAN parties too where id be godlike one moment then fall 3 places because im hungry :eek::eek:
never game on an empty stomach
Makes me remember the days of gaming UT04 in high school.
what about the rest of the world? id love to be in india though, intels must sell for cheep
I agree, that Intel won't do this, but my point wasn't that Intel should do it, it was that essentially, that is all AMD did. They took a single core processor that already exists, dropped the clock speed down to pathetic levels, and binned them to find the ones that would do that low clock speed at an extremely low voltage. That isn't anything special, IMO. When they get something that is actually new, then we can make a big deal out of it.
As for the chipset, I totally agree, right now the chipset is the downfall of Atom. The 780G is definitely better than the i945. Though you don't have to use a i945 with Atom.
On the rest I kind of agree. Probably Intel could make what you said, but in the end the result would be similar to what Atom offers. That's the reason why I don't see the point of Atom. If a downclocked desktop processor can match your energy efficient processor, what's the point of designing it?
If they were matching the Atom with a sub 10W chipset, then those extra 4w of the 2000+ would mean something. But right now we don't need Atom as it is. Atom+i945 is not a lot smaller than AMD's solution, you can't implement it in smaller devices, so you are left with a crippled in-order CPU with no advantages in the segment where you can implement it. Sure, whenever Intel makes a proper chipset Atom will shine. If AMD, Via or even maybe Nvidia doesn't come up with something better by then, that is. I never saw a market segment where Atom could fit anyway. It is too big and too power hungry for portable devices (Tegra is a lot better suited for that, for example) and you can have faster "normal" desktop or mobile CPUs that only consume 5w more for larger devices. You want some graphics power in the bigger ones anyway, so your full system will not consume less than 50w. 50w, 55w what's the difference?
Yet I must admit that I neither see the point of the Eee, at least the smaller one. That's probably because I don't like middle ground products. For me there's no place for anything between a laptop (bigger Eee counts here) and a full featured cellphone. I don't see the need for anything between the two, and it's there where Atom could make sense IMO. But that's only how I see it.
though I kinda agree - its nothing more then just a Micro/Baby ATX (Or ITX???)
tightly packed into an incredibally small case made of recycled plastic.
Personally I think if they really wanted to they could influence the industry & bring down the overall price of the 'mobile' hardware market so you can walk into your local hardware store & order an MxM g.card or Mobile CPU, Mini PCi cards etc - & have them stick it in a bag for you at the RIGHT prices & also because they ACTUALLY stock them
not many high street shops will stock cpus & other upgrades asside from RAM for laptops. I swear if they cut down the price & stocked them - everyone would be running an much more efficient PC
take a look at the Pentium M cpu they used in laptops - some online retailers sold Mini/Baby ATX's for them & the CPU's overclocked & performed like mad while also retaining their energy saving abilities.
like i said - if mobility parts were cheaper im sure everyone would be replacing their Media centers with these low power consumpton components
www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16834220350 -the eeepc.
Well I was asking if there was another chipset as I didn't knew if there was any. Even though after a second read I must admit my question looks rhetorical.
I neither knew the existance of the mobile version, see, I thought they used the same. All my next comments were derived from this, so what can I say...
As of when talking about smaller devices I was refering to smaller ones. That's why I introduced Tegra. As I said it's because I don't like the small EeePC and similars. For me there's no place for anything between a full featured PC and iPhone/Touch-like devices. But that's just me, I recognize that other people want such things, so I withdraw what was said.
Oh and the 50/55 watts was about a desktop/media center PC. Again the lack of knowledge about the mobile chipset, made me think Atom was not really ready (not more than a Celeron) for ultra-mobile devices. I don't know anything about the Eee anyway, just the specs overview.