by Anton Shilov
05/16/2006 | 04:35 AM
As expected, Advanced Micro Devices has announced its initiative to supply desktop processors with significantly lowered power consumption. Thanks to 65W and 35W power envelopes, AMD believes system makers will be able to create smaller computers while preserving high performance.
“Customers are demanding a renewed focus on energy efficiency and AMD is responding by delivering energy-efficient desktop processors that can help OEMs innovate and deliver small, sleek PC designs that enable businesses and consumers to save energy,” said Bob Brewer, corporate vice president, desktop business, AMD.
The announcement comes weeks before Intel starts commercial shipments of its new Intel Core 2 chips for desktops, which have exactly the same power consumption figures as the Energy Efficient processors from AMD. The new chips AMD prepares will feature the company’s new AM2 form-factor and will support DDR2 memory, which consumes less power than previous-generation DDR SDRAM.
There will be two versions of chips for socket AM2 designed for small form-factor systems: with 35W (called Energy Efficient Small Form-Factor) and 65W (dubbed Energy Efficient) thermal design power (TDP). AMD said the new lineup of desktop chips with trimmed power consumption will be available this May, however, the company did not specify, whether it would be available for its resellers, or end-users. Usually AMD announces the start of its own revenue shipments.
“Based on advances in technology, as well as the changing business and consumer usage models, we believe that smaller machines with more innovative designs will outsell the ‘mini-tower’ designs traditionally favored by businesses and power-hungry consumers,” said Jim McGregor, principal analyst with In-Stat.
Energy Efficient SFF processors will include 64 X2 3800+ with 35W TDP (with $364 price-tag), which will remain single dual-core offering with such a low power consumption till Q2 2007. Additionally, there will be AMD Athlon 64 processors 3500+ ($231), and AMD Sempron processors 3400+ ($145), 3200+ ($119) and 3000+ ($101).
All Sempron processors today have 62W TDP, whereas the Athlon 64 3500+ may have thermal guideline of either 67W or 89W, depending on the stepping. Typical single-core chips for future socket AM2 platforms will have 62W thermal envelope.
The lineup of Energy Efficient chips will include dual-core AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ ($323), 4000+ ($353), 4200+ ($417), 4400+ ($514) and 4600+ ($601) with thermal guideline of 65W. In Q3 2006 AMD is expected to introduce the model 4800+ ($671), which is expected to remain the top energy efficient offering till the Q2 2007, with similar thermal specs.
Depending on the speed bin, the dual-core desktop chips from AMD now have 110W or 89W TDP. Typical dual-core chips for socket AM2 will have TDP of 89W.
While this is the first time when a company announced energy efficient chips for desktops, there nothing new in the initiative from a technical point of view: AMD has been supplying AMD Opteron processors with power consumption of as low as 30W for single-core chips and 55W for dual-core chips for years now.