AMD's "Energy Efficient Processors" deliver the same performance with the same core frequency and cache sizes but with lower heat dissipation and power consumption. These CPUs will retail for a slight premium. Max Thermal Power: 65W (4600+), 35W (3800+)Įnergy Efficient processors available in Socket AM2 flavors for the desktop and have maximum wattage specifications of 65 watts and 35 watts. _ 1.025-1.075V for energy efficient 35W small form factor processors _ 1.20-1.25V for energy efficient 65W processor _ Windsor Core - Approximately 153.8 million _ Redesigned 4-bolt heatsink tray for better stability _ AMD's Fab 30 wafer fabrication facility in Dresden, Germany HyperTransport Spec: 2GHz (2x 1000MHz / DDR)Įffective data bandwidth: 20.8 GB/sec (8GB/sec HyperTransport link + 12.8GB/sec memory) _ Memory Controller: Shared integrated 128-bit wide memory controllerĭDR2 memory up to and including PC2 6400 (DDR2-800) unbufferedĭDR 2 memory up to and including PC2 5300 (DDR2-667) unbuffered _ L1 Cache Sizes: 64K - L1 instruction + 64K - L1 data cache per core (256KB total L1) _ Frequency / Cache Sizes: 2.6GHz w/ 512KB L2 cache-per-core (1MB total L2 per processor)
This approach not only reduces power consumption and heat output in their low-power "Cool-n-Quiet" mode, but also during full throttle active usage scenarios.ĪMD Athlon 64 X2 4600+ And Athlon 64 X2 3800+ Energy Efficient Processorsĭual Athlon 64 Cores Clocked at 2.4GHz And 2.0GHz Both the Athlon 64 X2 and Core 2 Duo processor cores have elaborate clock gating schemes to allow their cores to ramp down during periods of inactivity or light workloads.ĪMD's line of "Energy Efficient Processors" takes this approach one step further by allowing operating input voltages to dip even further down, well below the standard range of the first Athlon 64 X2 and FX dual core chips that hit the market. Let's face it, the modern high end computer is like a small space heater for all intents and purposes, and where there's heat, there's power consumption - typically a lot of power consumption.īoth AMD and Intel have made great technological strides when it comes to power consumption in their current CPU architectures. And while overclocked to 2.5GHz, our sample CPU's idle and load temperatures hovered between 41 oC and 48 oC.Energy efficiency and power consumption are major concerns for modern computing architectures, whether you're an Enthusiast, an IT Manager in a Data Center, or simply an ecologically minded individual. While running at its stock clock speed of 2.0GHz, the CPU idled at about 33 oC, and while under load we never saw its temperature surpass 39 oC. We should also report that our Athlon 64 X2 3800+ ran relatively cool throughout our testing, regardless of whether or not the CPU was overclocked. Perhaps with more exotic cooling, beyond the traditional heatsink and fan we use here, the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ will overclock even higher than this.
And at 2.7GHz, Windows would begin to load, but would blue-screen before reaching the desktop. At about 2.6GHz, we could get Windows XP to boot to the desktop, but running applications caused instability.
We were actually able to hit much higher frequencies, but couldn't keep our test system stable. In the end, we were able to hit a final, completely stable clock speed of 2.5GHz (10x250MHz). We then raised the motherboard's base HT frequency until our test system was no longer stable. We then raised the memory's supply voltage to 2.9v, and configured the memory to run at 333MHz instead of 400MHz. We began by raising the VCore voltage to 1.425v, and lowering the multiplier of the HyperTransport link to 3X, from the default 5X. We also tried to overclock the new Athlon 64 X2 3800+, and had some interesting results. The AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+: CPU-Z Info & Overclocking The second core has exactly the same specifications, but the total amount of on-die cache is not reported as a single "grand total" that's twice as large as a similar single-core processor. On single-core processors, this is not the case.ĬPU-Z's cache information page didn't reveal any unexpected information, other than the fact that it reported the information for only one of the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ processor's cores. One thing of notable importance on the processor info tab was that the "Processor Selection" drop-down menu was selectable.
If you take a look at the screenshots above, you'll see that the Athlon 64 X2 3800+ is clocked at a default speed of 2.0GHz (per core), with support for MMX, 3DNow!, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, and x86-64 instructions. Before we begun benchmarking the Athlon 64 X2 3800+, we fired up the latest version of CPU-Z to get some detailed information about our specific processor.