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."

Comments

90nm

[Anonymous Coward]

"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.

Transmeta

[Anonymous Coward]

Great, now my transmeta stock is going to go negative.

Re:Computing is not free.

[mmkkbb]

is this you?

Re:good news!

[Kirby-meister]

Wow...I figured that this wouldn't impress you much...:P

Aside from the whole saving power thing...

[brennanw]

... shouldn't it also reduce the heat produced by processors, therefore extending processor life?

Or, for an overclocked machine, extending the amount of time it takes for the processor to die? :)

Re:WOw

[Cadef]

You laugh, but it's true. I spent some time living in Kenya, and Internet cafes are everywhere. The power grids in these countries are already so stressed that to have a chip that drastically reduces power consumption in these places would be a tremendous help. And not just for Internet cafes, but for point-of-sale terminals, businesses, etc. (And yes, they really do have point-of-sale systems in the "third world.")

Re:One more question about AMD

[Anonymous Custard]

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.

These findings are opposite to those of Xbitlabs

[tayhimself]

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

Hoover dams? What's that in oil consumption?

[mikeophile]

In other words, cautiously we project the current power consumption of all computers running somewhere in the order of at least 20 Hoover Dam power plants

If 9000Mw/hrs are the equivalent of 4 Hoover dams and current estimate is 20 Hoover dams, then current consumption by CPUs is around 45,000 Mw/hrs.

This site quotes 10.9 cubic meters of oil per megawatt/hour.

If my math and sources are right, then CPUs alone, worldwide consume the equivalent of nearly 500,000 cubic meters of oil each year.

According to this site, one American barrel of oil is 0.15899 cubic meters.

That means that the power consumption of all the CPUs in the world equate to over 3 million barrels of oil/year.

Perspective? The US currently uses a bit over 20 million barrels of oil/day. So CPUs worldwide are using around the equivalent of .04% of the annual US oil consumption.

Re:So - solar power 'em?

[pclminion]

What are the options for installing about 150 or 200 watts of constant solar power?

You need to get a solar chart for your area of the world, and look up the equivalent insolation in terms of hours. Around here, we get an equivalent of 3.5 hours of maximum sunlight per day, averaged over the course of the year. Assuming your numbers are similar, you'll need about (24/3.5)*200 watts worth of solar panels -- that's 1370 watts. Assuming you get a great deal, you might pay $2.25 per watt, uninstalled cost, so that's over $3000 just for the panels. You'd also have to build a mounting system and possibly install a small motor to keep the panels pointed in the optimum direction.

On top of that, you need a battery system to provide power during hours of darkness. I could continue BS'ing the numbers to figure out how many batteries you'd need but would rather not. Needless to say, it's going to be several thousand dollars for the whole system.

(Yes, I've done this before)

paying twice

[plopez]

Don't forget that in may large server rooms you actually end up paying twice:

1) the first time to power the chips
2) the second time to remove the waste heat in the server room.

the pay off in some cases may be more than originally anticipated.

Re:It keeps getting better

[Glock27]

First, I have to admit I have a preference for Intel. I always have, and I am willing to pay a premium for the name. Back in college, when some tried to save a few bucks and buy Cyrix, the rest of us saw the hell they lived through. Windows NT would NOT work with Cyrix, it kept locking up.

Yes, that all sounds about right but has absolutely zero relevance to today and AMD.

The past few years, I have started meeting some people who are fanatical about AMD, how it is better than Intel. And it is no coincidence, many of these people are die-hard linux users as well. But I remembered the old AMD k-5 chips that used to overheat. My logic was "AMD is following the leader, making imitation chips, they will never be in the lead".

I'm not sure how your "logic" follows, but AMD has had several firsts over the last few years - first to 1 GHz., first with on-chip memory controller, and first with x86-64 instruction set. AMD chips are also the highest performers on pretty much every workload except media encoding/decoding. If you're a gamer, they are the best performers these days. Plus, AMD64 CPUs are rock-solid stable, use less power, run cooler, and cost less for the same level of performance. What's not to like?

I think the #1 problem AMD must overcome is the relationship Intel has with Microsoft. AMD makes clone chips, Intel makes chips that fit into Microsofts OS. Intel and Microsoft share information about how the chip will work with the software.

I have no idea what you're talking about here. Microsoft has been up-front about preferring AMD's 64 bit technology, and is using for all their 64 bit servers. Further, AMD is absolutely compatible with Intel, and there haven't been any publicized compatibility issues for quite a while.

And, I guess it is also an issue of name. To this day, I still buy Sony because their TV's were the cadillac of TV's when I was a kid.

Basing your purchases strictly on a company name is a good way to waste money. Do some research and buy the best product. In my opinion, on the PC CPU front, that's AMD.

Oh, one last point about AMD's current lineup - you can purchase a socket 939 motherboard today, and use an inexpensive Athlon 64 CPU for now, then later do a firmware upgrade and install a dual-core replacement once prices come down. Intel has no such upgrade path for its products.