News - AMD Phenom II X6 1055T now available with 95W TDP

[HEXUS]

A lowering of TDP means new revision of the six-core chip should overclock like a champ.

Read more.

[kalniel]

Amazing achievement on 45nm.

[miniyazz]

I found this an interesting read:

The thermal design power (TDP), sometimes called thermal design point, represents the maximum amount of power the cooling system in a computer is required to dissipate. For example, a laptop's CPU cooling system may be designed for a 20 watt TDP, which means that it can dissipate up to 20 watts of heat without exceeding the maximum junction temperature for the computer chip. It can do this using an active cooling method such as a fan or any of the three passive cooling methods, convection, thermal radiation or conduction. Typically, a combination of methods is used. The TDP is typically not the most power the chip could ever draw, such as by a power virus, but rather the maximum power that it would draw when running real applications. This ensures the computer will be able to handle essentially all applications without exceeding its thermal envelope, or requiring a cooling system for the maximum theoretical power, which would cost more and achieve no benefit.

In some cases the TDP has been under-estimated and that in real applications (typically strenuous, such as video encoding or games) the CPU has exceeded the TDP. In this case, the CPU will either cause a system failure (a "therm-trip") or throttle its speed down[1]. Most modern CPUs will only cause a therm-trip on a catastrophic cooling failure such as a stuck fan or a loose heatsink.

Since safety margins and the definition of what constitutes a real application vary between manufacturers, TDP values between different manufacturers cannot be accurately compared. While a processor with a TDP of 100 W will almost certainly use more power at full load than a processor with a 10 W TDP, it may or may not use more power than a processor from a different manufacturer that has a 90 W TDP. Additionally, TDPs are often specified for families of processors, with the low-end models usually using significantly less power than those at the high end of the family.

Odd about the TDP not necessarily being the maximum power draw. For laptops especially, if I buy a laptop, I want to know I can use it to its full potential (e.g. Folding, should I so desire, or perhaps more likely video encoding) without it dying in a horrific ball of fire and molten plastic because the cooling wasn't up to the actual power dissipation needed.
Any idea what improvements they made to reduce the TDP? Or just by binning chips?

[Temi_D]

How did they do that??!! I wonder whats gonna happen when they go to 32nm

[Tarinder]

AMD will tell you it's a combination of improvements in the manufacturing process, leading to better yields, augmented by binning.

Whatever else, six cores at 2.8GHz, plus Turbo Core, is pretty damn good.

[Terbinator]

The lower TDP didn't result in higher overclocks on the Q9550S.

[Tarinder]

We have one coming in soon. Will put it to the test and you good folk know.

[kalniel]

The lower TDP didn't result in higher overclocks on the Q9550S.

Same with the energy efficient athlon variants either if I remember correctly. But lower average power use is still nice if you're not a keen overclocker.

edit: (some delay between writing and posting, sorry! Looking forward to the test)

[Iron Sights]

either way I suppose it will save you some money, I cant wait to see the review

[Queelis]

We have one coming in soon. Will put it to the test and you good folk know.

Yay, I've been waiting for this since I've noticed there would be a 95W version. Can't wait!

[chis]

We have one coming in soon. Will put it to the test and you good folk know.

PLEASE DO!

I'm still on a Q6600 mildly overclocked. It's the longest I've had a CPU in my main workstation - since 2007! - and it's been a champ. But between 3Delight and Ableton Live my requirements have risen and it just isn't enough any more. Previously the 1055T hasn't looked like such a good option purely down to power consumption. If this brings it down by a sizeable amount, I might just have to change back to AMD...

[Percy1983]

Looks like I may go back to AMD and years with intel due to these, but my Q9550 is still going strong so no rush.

[badass]

Same with the energy efficient athlon variants either if I remember correctly. But lower average power use is still nice if you're not a keen overclocker.

edit: (some delay between writing and posting, sorry! Looking forward to the test)

Not just that. Some AMD motherboards can't take the 125W TDP processors. All AFAIK can take 95W TDP CPU's
My girlfirends little mATX based PC could now take a 6 core CPU (not that I'll bother, mind)

[kalniel]

Not just that. Some AMD motherboards can't take the 125W TDP processors. All AFAIK can take 95W TDP CPU's

Good point. I know there was a similar problem with the 140W CPUs.

[aidanjt]

I found this an interesting read:


Odd about the TDP not necessarily being the maximum power draw. For laptops especially, if I buy a laptop, I want to know I can use it to its full potential (e.g. Folding, should I so desire, or perhaps more likely video encoding) without it dying in a horrific ball of fire and molten plastic because the cooling wasn't up to the actual power dissipation needed.
Any idea what improvements they made to reduce the TDP? Or just by binning chips?

Not precisely, but for all intents and purposes, you may as well say TDP=E.

Reducing TDP is basically a function of reducing resistance in the ICs, and there's numerous ways of doing that. Usually by shortening pipelines, improving efficiency of the transistor layout, and whatnot.

[miniyazz]

Ah right, thanks for the info