Friday, July 10th 2009
AMD Staring at 140W Barrier with Phenom II X4 965?
Two of AMD's biggest setbacks with the 65 nm Phenom X4 series were 1. the TLB erratum fiasco with the B2 revision of the chip, and 2. the virtual TDP wall it hit with the 2.60 GHz Phenom X4 9950, at 140W. At that wattage, several motherboards were rendered incompatible with the processor because they lacked the power circuitry that could handle it. The company eventually worked out a lower-wattage 125W variant of the said chip, and went on to never release a higher-clocked processor based on the core.
MSI published the complete CPU support list of its a new BIOS for the 790GX-G65 motherboard a little early, revealing quite some about unreleased AMD processors. At the bottom of the list its the Phenom II X4 965. This 3.40 GHz quad-core chip will succeed the Phenom II X4 955 as AMD next flagship desktop offering. Its TDP is an alarming 140W. Alarming, because this is a chip with a mere 2 unit bus multiplier increment over the Phenom II X4 940, the launch-vehicle for AMD's 45 nm client processor lineup. There are, however, two things to cheer about. RB-C2 is not going to be the only revision of this core, future revisions could bring TDP down, or at least make sure clock-speeds of future models keep escalating, while respecting the 140W mark. A future variant of Phenom II 965 could come with a reduced TDP rating. The list interestingly also goes on to reveal that AMD will have a 95W version of the 3.00 GHz Phenom II X4 945.
Source:
HardwareLuxx.de
MSI published the complete CPU support list of its a new BIOS for the 790GX-G65 motherboard a little early, revealing quite some about unreleased AMD processors. At the bottom of the list its the Phenom II X4 965. This 3.40 GHz quad-core chip will succeed the Phenom II X4 955 as AMD next flagship desktop offering. Its TDP is an alarming 140W. Alarming, because this is a chip with a mere 2 unit bus multiplier increment over the Phenom II X4 940, the launch-vehicle for AMD's 45 nm client processor lineup. There are, however, two things to cheer about. RB-C2 is not going to be the only revision of this core, future revisions could bring TDP down, or at least make sure clock-speeds of future models keep escalating, while respecting the 140W mark. A future variant of Phenom II 965 could come with a reduced TDP rating. The list interestingly also goes on to reveal that AMD will have a 95W version of the 3.00 GHz Phenom II X4 945.
184 Comments on AMD Staring at 140W Barrier with Phenom II X4 965?
the cpu has a higher TDP then an i7 cpu and also has more MHz but is still shower then an i7 cpu whitch has less MHz.
AMD FAILED.
The CPU has not been released yet, all this information is based on sniffing information, wait for to see when or if the CPU gets released at 140w before we call them a fail, secondly what has what has MHz got to do with anything?
Has anyone ever noticed, its always the guys with ancient processors such as a the Pentium 4 *cough cough* or Celeron or something stupidly slow and old that always bash AMDs flagship processor. They would cream in their pants to swap their Pentium 4 for a Phenom II.
BTW TheMailMan78 you have another plus 1 for your wise cracks :roll::respect::laugh:
If you respond to someone baiting you, it gets both people in trouble. If you ignore them, only they do.
heck a intel 95W cpu is a AMD 125W cpu, its just how intel calulates *load*
btw the Phenom II 965 isnt even released yet, last thing i heard its a month away from release, and msi could have gotten a 125W part and forgot to update the cpu support list
I dont have a huge argument against it either -looking at my video cards, furmark uses 100W more than any game, no matter the settings i use, so if AMD wanted to label it with a TDP of less than its max, that makes sense to me.
Same applies with CPU's, the odds on 100% power usage outside of stress testing is pretty much nil.
-Core i7 965 (130w TDP) is lower power than Phenom 965 (140w TDP).
-Core i7 965 (~1.1v) does more work at fewer volts than Phenom II 965 (~1.2v).
-Core i7 965 (80-90C) runs hot with HT enabled because more of the chip is being used (signifying architecture efficiency).
-Phenom 965 can't hold a candle to the Core i7 965 in terms of performance (only exception being high resolution gaming).It is more like a specification (Thermal Design Power). AMD figures out the most this processor could safely draw and that establishes the TDP. From there, they decide how heavy of an HSF is needed to dissipate as much heat as the TDP suggests and also, motherboards have to have enough voltage regulators to handle that high of a load. TDP is determined by AMD/Intel to signify to the rest of the industry what it will take to run and cool that processor (or chipset).
Intel and AMD also calculate their TDP differently, so they are not comparable directly.
i.e. TWKR.
Disabling the DDR2 controller would save 10-15W as seen in the comparison of the same CPU on the 2 different platforms.
An AXP 2600+ was rated the same TDP was the 3200+.
There's a baseline margin of error for an absolute piss poor quality CPU that is added for a safety margin and to reduce the number of deaths/DOA chips. Then there is the real performance of chips which will change vastly too. TWKR chips were reported as "high leakage" parts. TDP only refers to the absolute maximum a given grade of CPU should -ever- put out, and if designed right should never actually hit that threshold. (The exact method this is calculated is not given by AMD -OR- Intel. )
Desktop CPU's are often 85W chips.. but hardly any have ever actually held 85W of heat output before overclocking. Otherwise I should be able to use my AXP cooler on my A64. :p
AMD's TDP does give a good indicator of struggling with power consumption for CPU production.