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?
Hp currently offers up to the 945 on their site, etc., etc.
Why do you think AMD makes these cpus? To appease us enthusiasts? Not really. They make much more money on the OEM sector. For an oem to consider these, it has to be able to fit into their lineup as seamlessly as possible, meaning they need to be able to use their existing cooling solutions and mobos.
the top of the line cpu's every OEM has used were vanilla chips 9850 none BE and the lower watt versions
no manufacturer like Dell, HP or gateway has used a unlocked just released chip in quite some time (since the FX series days)
find me a OEM with a phenom II 955 in it or a phenom I 9950. but for now some chips are made just for enthusiasts to play with. other chips are for mainstream pc's.
max in an HP is the phenom 945
max in a dell is a phenom 9650
max in a gateway is a phenom 810
And off the top of my head, Alienware has offered the BE's. I'm gonna have to say that they still represent more in terms of sales than the DIY enthusiast community, otherwise they wouldn't still be around.
2 amd can give you loads off fun. Tricore 4890 Cheap ass mobo and mem
3 140 w means it is over 125 at peak like can happen but doesn't use 140 w
4 amd got a platform and intel doesn't. Gaming platform that is.
5 and the most important one
Many here will buy i7 and 965 955 but the random guy you pass on the street would want a tricore 800 series quad or a 600 series quad.
And amd really just care about bringing us value products that most people want and give overclckers fun and set records.
That's what sell, no denying it. They do it very very well.
And no denying that i7 is a masterpiece aswell and have it's place in the market, it's not ment for the average tamer like phii.
I5 will be thaat product.
There is no problem playing whatever you want on a freaking cheap ads system, reason: amd tricore and 4850 ftw.
I really can't say anything else than amd has the most of the market ATM till i5 comes which will be probaly awesome! And looking forward to it !
Must be the heat of summer getting to all the i7 owners ;)
Perhaps generalnonsense.net would be a good place to hash it out?
I owned EVERY socket A k7 core, and the only truely hot ones where the tbird and the palomino the tbred-a where not hot at stock(didnt clock for shit tho) and the tbred-b where killer clockers and didn't produce alot of heat for their clocks.
as to the TDP, Intel uses what they call "AVERAGE" numbers where AMD rates their chips at MAX numbers, this is why at times intels numbers have looked FAR FAR better then other makers chips, yet have produced more heat(preshott anybody?)
a good example is the ATOM, go take a look at the PLATFORM power use on atom vs the via nano, the ATOM platform uses more power enlarge due to the HORRIBLE chipset used, and despite the higher power use, its overall performance(gfx+cpu perf not just cpu benches) is worse.
no one said AMD was ahead infact i believe it was the intel fanboys who went and started slinging shit about this chip being 140w. maybe i missed the memo but intel rates that wonderful i7 920 to be a 130w chip. no one crapped their pants no one ran home screaming yet its running a huge 10w less than this chip will?
not to mention at stock were the vast majority of BOTH of these chips will run the AMD chip will outperform the i7 920. no if, ands, or butts about it with the clock speed ramped up to 3.4ghz this chip will have an advantage over a stock core i7 920 in just about every task. now when oc'd the 920 takes the lead i understand that everyone understands that however with that lead it outputs more heat than these chips will consume more power. performance per watt these two chips will be on AMD's favor. the phenom 965BE shows promise with prerelease retail branded chips around 4-4.1ghz on air alone and a vcore of 1.45-1.5v with those clock speeds you are looking at 170-200w TDP's on these chips. Now a i7 920 D0 will hit around 4.3-4.4ghz on 1.4-1.45v you are looking at 290-320w TDP's.
thats for the cpu alone now why don't we compare the power consumption of X58 vs 790FX. 790FX consumes 3w idle and 10w on load giving it an 8w TDP intels X58 24.1w TDP wow 3x as much power just to talk to the peripherals....
so this gives you 178-208w TDP from CPU+MOBO on AMD's side and 314-344w TDP on intel's side 41% higher than AMD's solution you could put a phenom II X4 905e rig together and run it on the energy you save going with a 965BE over a 920 and oc'ing both. that should say something.
I can honestly say my next rig might be an Intel/Nvidia combo. :eek:
I haven't received a shareholders newsletter in months.
the palomino's where the hottest chips I have seen AMD produce, those suckers would run 54c idle, and 60+ load on the stock cooler, with 3rd party cooling you could stabilize them, but they never clocked for shit :/
the tbred-a, some overclocked a little, but never worth buying for the overclock, but they didnt run as nearly as hot as the pallys in my experiance
www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K7/TYPE-Athlon%20XP.htmlduno if this will help, but the tbred chips where .13 vs the pally at .18, the first run of any new prosess for AMD sucks ballz for clocking, look back at the k8's for example, I saw alot of 90nm chips that clocked worse then the 130's
examples being the winchester cores(first 90nm cores), they for the most part clocked WORSE then the 130nm parts they replaced, BUT the Venice cores clocked very well and ran nice and cool(for their day)
All I know is that the barton wasnt the first cool running axp, the tbred-b was, and the 1700+ tbred-b was a STEAL, every single one I got my hands on clocked to 2600+ or higher clocks with ease, even the locked ones!!!
Now, if AMD would've outlined 140w TDPs from the beginning, and all AMD boards were built with that in mind, then yeah, it would be no problem. In short, it's a product planning issue.Right, but they still need to make sure they an run a 140w cpu in their machines. They now have to double check if their coolers, and vreg cooling are up to the task. It still doesn't change my original point that the higher TDP will effect OEM's.Yeah, but that leaves you switching boards if you want to try a multi-card setup from the other camp. So it's not "woopdee fricken do", it's a very legitimate advantage i7 has over Phenom II. That also helps OEMs, as they now don't have to stock out 2 different boards for SLI or Crossfire setups. That's very significant.
And who the hell brought up K7 vs P4 and Atom vs Nano? Those arguments are silly, and just need to stop. They have no bearing on the current topic at all.
an example is that prescott thats rated at 89watts, but puts out far far more heat then my cpu's i have had rated at over 100....
again, u cant go by the ratings the companies put on their own chips, its like compairing chips based on their clocks speeds..... u could have a p4 a 4.6gz but it would still be slower then a core2 or k8/k10 chip at 3gz,