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?
hehe its 125W just like the 955, kinda bad to put 140W in the title when it just might have been a early sample
and guess what core i7 is a 130W part hehe
As far as building a high-end AMD yourself, that's not the scope of this current conversation. The scope of the current conversation has been that 140w rating does have a negative effect, especially to OEMs.
ANd my posts aren't intended to come off as AMD. It's just that a lot of the very pro-AMD people post a fair bit of half-truths or misinformation. I only try to counter that. Like for instance, you'll never hear me say anything bad about building an AMD rig if i7 is out of budget, and you won't find me recommending LGA775 builds anymore. Only i7 or AMD (possibly i5 when it releases).Meecrob is correct. It's purely a licensing issue, and nVidia bears most of the blame, because not only do they not allow SLI on AMD chipsets, but they heavily frown upon Crossfire on NV chipsets, except in some very rare exceptions.Stores and Fudzilla are not good sources. Stores because mistakes made on one, sometimes trickle down to others, and Fudzilla because, well because it's Fudzilla. lol.
We'll have to wait for official word from AMD. If is indeed 125w, then this whole news post, and the ensuing debates, were indeed pointless.
if you got a dell p4 era or newer take that silent fan out, and plug it into a real mobo, it will blow your mind how much air it moves, im using one at this very moment on my cpu, its a panaflow(nbm or whatever) at full speed you can hear it across the room easly, i run it at 50% on all but the hottist days because it even gets a bit loud for my taist(and im no silance purist or for that matter lover......)
IF you ramp the fanspeed in a dell up, the case design is excellent(came from thier older BTX designs/airflow) i have seen plenty of these systems that have cases that are quite nice, other then the dell proprietary front panel connectors, they have a VERY OPEN front grill, the rear is well ventelated as well in the mini towers and full towers, the fans SILENT but thats due to them using the pwm feature to keep it that way till you hit meltdown temps(let a p4/p-d rig hit dells critical temps and the fan will spool up to full power)
i agree tho, many of the systems OEM's make dont have the best airflow, its gotten better over the years, as long as you avoid the thin clients(god those SUCK ASS)
if u can rob some of those 120's give them a test at full tilt, u will be suprised by how powerfull they really are.....real waste for dell to run them at 15-20% when they arent loud at all at 50% :)
Also "HDZ965FBK4DGI" (140W) tells us that it is not a PIB (processor-in-(a)-box), as "BOX" would be the suffix. So the bets are off, no 140W commercially available 965 BE.No Phenom II is ending with the "BOX" suffix. Wait and see. Sorry for any confusion.
-All X58 chipsets have the necessary hardware to run SLI. In fact, all X38 and X48 chips also have that ability.
-The Intel 5400 (Skulltrail chipset) does not natively support SLI because it is largely based on Intel 5000 series chipsets. Because this is the Skulltrail platform, not having SLI was deemed unacceptable so to add it, the use two NVIDIA nForce 100 MCP chips and modified the chipset enough (to include those additional chips) to warrant giving it its own model number (5400).
-In all cases of SLI-enabled chipsets that aren't manufactured by NVIDIA, an SLI license must be acquired for third-party manufacturers to sell that particular SKU. If they don't purchase the SKU, they need to disable it (via BIOS code) or else run the risk of getting sued by NVIDIA (protecting IP).
-SLI is a hardware- & software-based technology. You need a chipset that is capable of handling SLI (hardware), you need two or more similar video cards (also hardware), you need proper BIOS that unlocks the hardware (software), and you need drivers to tell the OS how to use it (also software). All four elements combined is SLI--two of which are embedded in the motherboard.Skulltrail says otherwise. If hardware was not required for SLI, why would Intel have put two lowly NVIDIA chips on their $600 motherboard?
In case of Skulltrail, like I said, they found a makeshift way of making sure NVIDIA gets its cut without having to sign agreements with Intel (since it is the manufacturer of Skulltrail), beyond purchasing nForce 200 like any other component. With X58, the dealings were between the motherboard vendors and NVIDIA. Intel has no role, except that it eventually got one for its DX58SO.
The only X58 SLI boards that have the NF200 chips on them, are those that support Tri SLI at 16x, 16x, 16x speeds. And those come at a heavy premium, thus nVidia making extra money on those boards.
And it makes perfect sense for them to allow SLI on non-NF equipped boards, because that's the only way they will make ANY money on i7 in the midrange at all. They would lose a ton of money if they didn't license it to Intel, as they wouldn't be making a dime on those mid range x58 boards, as opposed to making $5 on them now.
Remember, they have no i7 chipset of their own, so it was the only way for them to get a piece of the pie.
They didn't have to enable SLI on X38, X48, P45, etc, etc. because they had competing LGA775 chipsets in 750, 780, and 790.
They have nothing to compete against Intel on i7 chipsets. Allowing it on midrange X58 without the NF200 was the only way they could get a piece of the midrange pie.
SLI has always been software limited. Remember the ULI chipsets that supported SLI, but NV blocked in a driver update?