Affordable Dual Core from AMD: Athlon 64 X2 3800+
by Anand Lal Shimpi on August 1, 2005 9:36 AM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Power Comparison: Manchester vs. Toledo
In our first review of the Athlon 64 X2, we were astounded by the fact that the fastest Athlon 64 X2, thanks to its cool running 90nm process, consumed less power than any single core Pentium 4 processor, not to mention all of the dual core models.We also noted that a dual core Athlon 64 X2 processor used less power than a single core 130nm Athlon 64, once again a testament to AMD's transition to 90nm.
This time around, we're interested in the power consumption benefits of the new Manchester core. AMD says the core drops the maximum power consumption from 110W down to 89W, but what is that in the real world?
In order to find out, we performed one simple test; we clocked an Athlon 64 X2 4200+ based on the old Toledo core at 2.0GHz, the same clock speed as the X2 3800+, and measured the total power consumption of the system. We then swapped out the Toledo based X2 for a new Manchester based X2 to see, clock for clock, what the tangible decrease in power consumption was.
Remember, we're only looking at total system power consumption - obviously CPU power consumption will be a lot lower, but with identical system specifications, the CPU's impact on power consumption should be the major variable that we're measuring here.
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neogodless - Monday, August 1, 2005 - link
new comments system seems to hate Firefoxanyway, all the price links on the article point to the Athlon 64 3800+ rather than the X2...
bersl2 - Monday, August 1, 2005 - link
It WorksForMe(TM).neogodless - Tuesday, August 2, 2005 - link
Good for you... I simply cannot login/post comments while using firefox. It seems to accept the login, as it doesn't spit back an "invalid" message but shows me the login form again, and no links to "post" or "reply". Probably just a cookie issue but I tried turning my security down a little and it still didn't work... is Anandtech requiring a 3rd party cookie to be set just to post comments... ?neogodless - Wednesday, August 3, 2005 - link
Dang it...For a short while a month or so back, I was "approving" each cookie individually, and anandtech insisted on planting a cookie until I said "block site completely" - forgot about that until today. Finally able to post in Firefox now!
Staples - Monday, August 1, 2005 - link
It is an eyesore regardless. I am using FF and I have not tried it in IE.SpaceRanger - Monday, August 1, 2005 - link
Excellent Article. I'm glad that AMD is coming out with more affordable Dual-Core solutions.Marlin1975 - Monday, August 1, 2005 - link
To bad the 2 people listed for having "availability" in this peice are already marking them OVER retail price. Let the price gouging start... :(blkrde - Monday, August 1, 2005 - link
Lets hope the prices come down soon. I need one of these in my new build.neogodless - Wednesday, August 3, 2005 - link
Yeah I haven't upgraded my motherboard/CPU combo in 20 whole months!!Still stuck with a 754 Athlon 64 3000+
I figure the 3800+ is like two of those :)
And like two of those... it'll only increase performance for multi-tasking... but it's already plenty for all the single tasks I have.
Now I paid $215 then... so I guess $430 would be fair for one of these...