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AMD 'Venice' Core Shows Big Drop in Power Needs
dtjohnson writes "
Lost Circuits has carefully
measured the power consumption of four recent Athlon 64 cores and
has found that power consumption has been dramatically reduced in the
new 'Venice'
core from the relatively-low (compared
to Intel P4) numbers of the original 2003 'Clawhammer' core to less
than 30 watts under load and less than 10 watts for Windows at
idle. This huge power reduction was apparently accomplished by a
combination of 90 nm die shrink, Silicon-on-Insulator
technology, and something called 'dual-stress
liner technology' As Lost Circuits points out, power
consumption worldwide has been exploding as more CPUs come online and
the CPU power requirements increase so a significant power reduction
will reduce the burden on electrical grids everywhere."
"a combination of 90 nm die shrink"
No, the Winchester core preceding it was 90nm. There was no die shrink with Venice.
Still a great core, but this is a blatant error on the front page.
is this you?
-mkb
While it doesn't really make that much of a difference, the core lines gon Diego (1MB L2) andV enice (512kB L2).
Clawhammer(754)->Clawhammer(939)->nothing->Sa
Newcastle(754)->Newcastle(939)->Winchester->
But whatever. I'm sure the extra cache doesn't make too much of a difference.
Um no? Your CPU isn't a Heater, it's just a byproduct and since 100% of the energy going into your CPU isn't being put off as energy, it's nowhere near 100% efficient.
Where is the other energy going then? Disneyland?
I think the 2nd law of thermaldynamics may apply here. It doesn't just disappear.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Their Athlon 64 FX-5x line is unlocked, designed for the enthusiast crowd. Their Athlon 64 xx00 series is multiplier-locked, but you can still play with the FSB.
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Xbitlabs found that Venice uses slightly more power than Winchester (the older 0.09u core) around a month ago. They tested cores at the same speed unlike Lostcircuits, and while LC is a good site, xbit is generally better. Not to mention the guy at LC blew up a few MBs before "finding out" how to do his measurements. Aslo Xbit is the only site I know that has an accurate video card power consumption database. http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/print/athlon6 4-venice.html
Please read up http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heat_pump on how a heat pump works, because you are apparently ignorant of their operation.
A PC emits heat at roughly the same rate as a resistive heater (think Lightbulb or electric baseboard heating). A heat pump emits significantly more heat than that (two to three times more), by extracting heat from the outdoors and moving it inside.
No laws of thermodynamics are broken in the process.
And the worms ate into his brain.
WTF??
Two other people have already said the same thing, but I'm going to repeat it. Either you live in some weird country where toilets are all different, or you're just ignorant. Here in the US (should be obvious since I mentioned Home Depot and Lowes), toilets are all the same. There's a supply line on the lower left side (viewed from front), and a drain on the bottom. There's two bolts on either side of the drain.
To replace, you disconnect the supply line, remove the nuts from the bolts, and just lift the toilet up. Then, replace the wax ring on the flange (costs about $4; wear gloves), sit the new toilet down on the flange/ring and seat firmly. Put the nuts back on (and decorative covers), connect the supply line (a flexible line, ~$10, is a good idea), turn on the water, and you're done.
Of all the plumbing jobs out there, replacing a toilet is one of the easiest. With faucets, you have to worry about whether the sink has 1 hole or 3 holes or whatever. But toilets are all the same. Even the fancy pressurized toilets still install exactly the same way as the regular gravity-operated ones, although their internal operation is completely different.
Therefore, using gas heat is about 3X more efficient overall than using resistive electric heat. In most areas, energy prices reflect this. (Your CPU is effectively resistive electric heat.)
Heat pumps counteract the inefficiency of delivered electricity by extracting a couple of watts of heat energy from the outside air and moving it inside for every watt of electricity consumed. Therefore heat pumps can be competitive with gas heat (unless it gets too cold to effectively pump). CPUs are not heat pumps, however.
Bottom line: waste electrical heat is not a cost-effective way to heat your house vs. your furnace or a heat pump. In most areas it's cheaper to not create the waste heat in the first place and use your furnace to heat your house instead.
All of this obeys all rules of thermodynamics.