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AMD Stirs Athlon Into Geode Embedded Soup

Posted by timothy on from the need-my-own-focus-group dept.

An anonymous reader writes "AMD, which in recent months has gained ground against Intel in the battle for the desktop, today announced the addition of a line of high-performance, low-power embedded processors to its Geode embedded x86 processor family. The new processors will be known as the "Geode NX 1500@6W" and the "Geode NX 1750@14W," reflecting a new naming convention based on relative performance and power consumption. The Geode NX 1500@6W processor operates at 1GHz and the Geode NX 1750@14W operates at 1.4GHz. The two new embedded processors are essentially identical to AMD's Mobile Athlon processors, including packaging, but with tweaks to process technology and transistor selections that result in lower power consumption at reduced clock rates." If it meant better battery life, I could live with a processor this slow in a laptop, but according to the linked story, AMD doesn't see much of a market for that.

8 of 231 comments (clear)

  1. Re:AMD is starting to make my head hurt... by PhrostyMcByte · · Score: 4, Informative

    AMD's scoring isn't based on MHz, but speed.

  2. Re:AMD Geode? by CTho9305 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Yes, in August 2003. AMD has decided to include all of its low-power x86 processors in the "Geode" brand.

    --
    My server
  3. Re:AMD is starting to make my head hurt... by smartdreamer · · Score: 4, Informative
    There's nothing like this in AMD numbering scheme. Like they did with desktop computers, the numbers are comparaisons.
    For example, a 3000+ is not 3Ghz but an estimate Mhz comparison with Intel's processors.

    Here the comparison is made against VIA processors. So a 1500 is a 1Ghz comparable with a 1500Mhz VIA processor.

    It is better explained here http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/05/24/amd_geode/

  4. Re:AMD is starting to make my head hurt... by The+Analog+Kid · · Score: 4, Informative

    For example, a 3000+ is not 3Ghz but an estimate Mhz comparison with Intel's processors.

    Uhhh..no, the rating is not used to compare Intel processors it's suppose to compare to the Athlon T-bird.

    An XP 3000+ is suppose to run like a T-Bird clocked at 3Ghz.

    It just so happened that the XPs beat out the P4 at that same clockrating as well.

  5. Re:AMD is starting to make my head hurt... by Sivar · · Score: 4, Informative
    They were never consistant in the first place! I put the model number vs. MHz on a scatterplot a while ago and it wasn't linear, though it was close.
    Again, the numbers are not based on clockspeed. Even Intel's "Clockspeed is all that matters" platform does not scale linearly with clockspeed. Remember, during the life of the Athlon rating system, Intel's Pentium IV had minor overhauls that greatly boosted the performance-per-clock.
    The change to the Northwood core, the change to a two-channel DDR400 memory subsystem with a 200MHz (QDR) bus are two big examples.
    AMD had similar (but less significant) performance increases as well.
    If they would have stupidly stuck with Intel's "Clockspeed is performance" mantra, the model numbers would have eventually become extremely misleading.
    First generation Palomino Athlons do not perform as well as modern Thoroughbred Athlons anymore than Williamette Pentium IV's can compare to 800MHz FSB Northwoods.

    If you plot your graph according to the average score of major benchmarks, you will find that up until about the AthlonXP 3200+ (possibly the 3000+), the rating system has been surprisignly accurate, and even a little conservative. The 3200+ rating is a bit overenthusiastic.

    Athlon64's are now back to a conservative system of comparing performance.
    --
    Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
  6. Re:AMD is starting to make my head hurt... by CTho9305 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Power = C*V^2*F. C is a constant (capacitance switched), V is voltage, F is frequency. The 1GHz part runs at 1V, and is 6 watts typical:
    6 Watts = C*1v*1v*1000000000hz
    C = 6/1000000000
    13.125 = C*1.25v*1.25v*1400000000Hz = C*1.56*1400000000Hz

    Since they're the same core, the factor C is the same. The reason it isn't exactly 14 watts is most likely the static (leakage) power... even when nothing is switching, a small amount of current is flowing, just producing heat.

    --
    My server
  7. Re:AMD is starting to make my head hurt... by Fweeky · · Score: 4, Informative

    Memory bandwidth doesn't tend to scale up with CPU speed, so while you can expect a linear speed increase for executing instructions in cache, most applications are going to be hitting system memory a lot and dragging performance down.

    Check AMD's white paper on XP product numbering; you'll see they actually base their numbers on a wide range of benchmarks to try to give customers a number which actually reflects performance fairly well; that's important when, say, they increase the amount of on-die cache, as with the Barton; a 2500+ Tbred has a higher clockrate than a 2500+ Barton -- can you think of a clearer way of showing that their performance is largely the same?

  8. Re:Why you probably won't see it in laptops by the_ed_dawg · · Score: 4, Informative
    Just to back up your argument, according to Benini et al. in "Policy Optimization for Dynamic Power Management," the breakdown of power consumption by subsystem is:

    1. 36% display
    2. 21% digital circuitry (CPU, RAM, etc.)
    3. 18% Hard disks
    4. 18% Networking
    5. 7% Non-critical components
    It definitely takes more than replacing the CPU to really save power. Amdahl's Law in action...

    For those exceptionally motivated with IEEE membership, search IEEE Xplore for "predictive shutdown," "dynamic voltage scaling," or "dynamic power management."

    --
    There are two types of people: those prepared for the zombie apocalypse and those who will be eaten.