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AMD Portables Hardware Technology

AMD Launches Low-Voltage Processors 248

Posted by CowboyNeal from the cooling-things-down dept.
mgoulding writes "CoolTechZone reports that AMD has released its low-power Athlon processors, which are designed to target the ultra-lightweight notebook market. The low-voltage chips will use smaller batteries and produce less heat. Acer plans to ship systems using the processors by the end of May." Acer plans to use them in their Ferrari line of thin laptops.
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AMD Launches Low-Voltage Processors More

AMD Launches Low-Voltage Processors

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  • transmeta (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mandalayx ( 674042 ) * on Thursday May 06, 2004 @06:40PM (#9078332) Journal
    The competitor that comes to my mind is Sharp and their Transmeta Efficeon processor [slashdot.org]. That notebook is quoted as being 2 pounds and 1GHZ/512MB/20GB/10.4" for $1499.

    I do want a laptop for class and just having around, so I was strongly considering getting the Sharp, but constructive suggestions welcomed..

    • Re:transmeta (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Glock27 ( 446276 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @06:53PM (#9078433)
      The competitor that comes to my mind is Sharp and their Transmeta Efficeon processor. That notebook is quoted as being 2 pounds and 1GHZ/512MB/20GB/10.4" for $1499.

      I don't think there's any comparison on performance...the 2800+ AMD part should completely smoke the Transmeta. Battery life...well I'm not sure but how long are you really planning on running unplugged at a time? I'd guess the AMD parts are intended to run for ~5 hours with moderate use.

      Anyone have any benchmarks on the Efficeon?

    • hanging around (Score:5, Interesting)

      by poptones ( 653660 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @06:58PM (#9078473) Journal
      No way would I pay $1000 or more for a laptop computer. No matter what you do it's still going to have one of those cramped keyboards and limited expansion without carrying aroound a bag of USB goodies. And if you drop it then what? Yeah you can get an expensive new system with one of those "oops I dropped it" warranties, but that same money would buy a LOT of spare parts for an older, well built machine.

      For $1500 I can have, like, 6 or 7 T600 stinkpads. Or maybe just one or two and a sack of batteries to keep it running 12 hours or more. Gets the job done, and if I drop it I don't care so much. "No one will ever need more than 500MHz and 512MB of memory."

      I've had a lot of laptops and they all sucked compared to my (relatively) light, compact little thinkpad. They work great with linux and they feel so soft and squishy - if batman carried a laptop, he'd carry a classic thinkpad.

      • Re:hanging around (Score:3, Informative)

        by Carnildo ( 712617 )
        Cramped keyboards? The 15" PowerBook I'm typing this on has a keyboard with full-sized keys. They've got less travel than a normal keyboard, but that's the only difference.
        • If it's got a 15" screen then it's considerably larger than a T600, which barely is large enough for the 13.3" TFT. It's not thin enough to cut in half with scissors, but it's still about the compactness (well, and the general adaptability - spare parts are plentiful and cheap).

          The thinkpad also has full size keys but the layout isn't "full size" and having everything cramped together makes typing on any laptop, for me, feel claustrophobic.

    • Re:transmeta (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Transmeta Review [vanshardware.com]

  • Watt? (Score:2, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I'm amped to get one of these!

  • the final frontier (Score:2, Interesting)

    by the arbiter ( 696473 )
    I've been using nothing but AMD since 1998 and am an extremely satisfied customer.

    If AMD has truly learned how to make a cool, low-voltage/low-wattage processor, well...all I can say is you might want to sell your Intel stock.

    Go AMD!!!

    • Re:the final frontier (Score:5, Insightful)

      by tibike77 ( 611880 ) <tibikegamez@yahoo.cSTRAWom minus berry> on Thursday May 06, 2004 @06:47PM (#9078386) Journal
      Intel (as Microsoft and other "dinosaurs") will never get "really low in stockprice", because they have too much accumulated wealth to get out of most situations. Personally, I have used a mix of all kinds of MoBos and CPUs from everybody (yeah, even a Cyrix) and I can't say I have been extremely pleased nor displeased by any of them. The only news here is (therefore) that a new "cooler" (pun intended) CPU is here for the laptop market, hence prices will go down... shoppers rejoice :)

    • Re:the final frontier (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Rodrin ( 729362 ) <[chris] [at] [coggburn.us]> on Thursday May 06, 2004 @06:54PM (#9078448) Homepage Journal
      Most geeks I talk to, unless they are crazy or otherwise weird, agree that AMD is the processor to go with. I can handle a little more heat when it comes to a $100 price difference most of the time. And now that technically the intel 64bit processors are a copy of AMD's Athlon64 perhaps AMD will lead and intel will walk behind. You never know.

      • Re:the final frontier (Score:4, Insightful)

        by geekoid ( 135745 ) <dadinportland&yahoo,com> on Thursday May 06, 2004 @07:07PM (#9078530) Homepage Journal
        well, IF AMD becomes the market leader, rest assure most geeks will switch to Intel.
        These days, being a geek doesn't mean liking the best designed products, but you also have to like the underdog as well.

        • Re:the final frontier (Score:4, Insightful)

          by 13Echo ( 209846 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @07:27PM (#9078652) Homepage Journal
          Not particularly. Geeks will normally just by the fastest CPU for the right price. For many years, that has been AMD. Intel is getting to be more competitive, but Athlons still perform better (in most respects) than a Pentium 4 of the same price.

          There's a reason why AMD has slowly been gaining on Intel for market share, and that reason is why they accounted for 52% of desktop CPUs that shipped in a recent week. The "Intel Inside" campaign is wearing off, especially when Intel is trying to compete with AMD by releasing their own 64 bit CPUs that are based off of AMD's pioneering X86-64 chips. Who's doing the reverse engineering now?

        • Re:the final frontier (Score:4, Insightful)

          by Spoing ( 152917 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @07:33PM (#9078719) Homepage
          1. well, IF AMD becomes the market leader, rest assure most geeks will switch to Intel.

            These days, being a geek doesn't mean liking the best designed products, but you also have to like the underdog as well.

          Do you have a specific list to share (where popular is unfairly ragged on while obscure has an undeserved geek/wannabe-geek following)? Maybe I misunderstand.

          For the record: I have bought an even split of AMD and Intel over the years. I don't see that changing, though it entirely depends on what goes around the processor. It's tough to pick a good sweet spot in laptops/notebooks mostly because of the extras (wanted and unwanted).

          There are many gems out there that aren't popular so personally I get excited when I find them. Usually, they follow standards properly (in hardware and/or software). I also like booring and cheap generic basics too; mice, keyboards, hard drives, 100 or 100/1000 bit ethernet, USB 2 (not the dumbed down one), ... .

        • Re:the final frontier (Score:3, Insightful)

          by 222 ( 551054 )
          Oddly enough the underdog also seems to have a better product at a lower price, and a much larger drive for innovation. Just my 2c ;)

      • Re:the final frontier (Score:3, Insightful)

        by njcoder ( 657816 )
        While lower voltage, cooler processors are great for laptops, it's the server market that could benefit most from these features. Paying $100 less for a processor is only one thing to consider when you have racks and racks of servers that you have to power and cool.

  • Why is it called low-voltage? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ForestGrump ( 644805 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @06:42PM (#9078345) Homepage Journal
    ok, it runs on a lower voltage.
    But isn't the reality that they have a lower wattage?
    Wattage being what really matters when it comes to power consumption and heat displacemnet.

    -Grump
    • Let's analyze and translate the above post shall we:

      ok, it runs on a lower voltage.

      That much is said in the article.

      But isn't the reality that they have a lower wattage?

      "wattage", also called power, only has to do with voltage for a fixed resistance. I suppose AMD lowered the voltage to lower the power consumption too, though, so what you said is obvious.

      Wattage being what really matters when it comes to power consumption and heat displacemnet.

      Yes, power is indeed what matters when it comes to
      • I don't think that is a stupid question at all. You are asuming that AMD is lowering the voltage to save on power. In reality you can lower the voltage and increase the amperage and still use the same amount of power/whattage.

        What the parent was doing is asking if that was what they ment in the article. If this was meaning the overal power consumption was lowered or if it was just shuffled around.

        --the only stupid question is the one not asked

    • Re:Why is it called low-voltage? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Humorously_Inept ( 777630 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @06:54PM (#9078438) Homepage
      Voltage is a squared term in the general power function for a CPU. Lowering the voltage will have a significant effect on power consumption. As you might imagine, the chip's operating frequency is another term in the function.
    • IANAEE, but Ohm's law would suggest that a reduction in voltage would pull less current assuming the resistance is constant(V=IR). Power is equal to current times voltage (W=IV). Lower voltage leads to lower current which leads to lower power.

      • the cpu isn't a static device - those transistors switching is what causes the heat, and from a power perspective those are teeny little capacitors each and every one. Doubling the voltage will cause a relative quadrupling of power stored in the junction. This is why jacking up core coltage just a tenth of a volt when overclocking can cause such dramatic heat increases inside the box.

        Q=CV^2

        • Re:Not ohm's law (Score:5, Informative)

          by rco3 ( 198978 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @07:50PM (#9078887) Homepage
          No. Ohm's law is in play. Charging a capacitor takes in energy, yes, but that energy is stored as charge, not radiated as heat. The heat comes from I^2*R loss. The I part comes when the capacitor must be charged.

          So, it's really pretty simple. Lower voltages mean that the capacitors don't take in as much charge, and therefore don't require as much current to charge up. Less current == less I^2*R loss == less power consumed.

          You can get similar improvements by reducing the size of the capacitances, which can be done by reducing the size of the FET gates... which means a smaller feature size.

          You are correct that the transistors look mostly like capacitors, but you are incorrect in stating that power is stored in the junction and that creates heat. Power is dissipated in the interconnects, sources and drains, and in the vias between layers. This is also one big reason why we went to copper - lower resistance interconnects == less power lost to resistance.
    • Well, power and voltage are directly related, so yeah, a reduction in voltage causes a reduction in power used. Whats your point?

      Now, you could theoretically make a high-voltage chip that is still low power. But thats not what they did. They lowered the voltage that the chip needs to be supplied. If anything, calling it a low-power chip makes less sense.
      • Everyone, please take a step away from the keyboard and visit this site:

        http://www.nmsea.org/Curriculum/Primer/How_is_el ec trical_energy_measured.htm

        It's a very nice, plain english, tutorial about the relationship between Volts, Amps, Watts and Joules (the electric pantheon so to speak).

  • tech info (Score:5, Informative)

    by Coneasfast ( 690509 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @06:42PM (#9078349)
    here is some tech info in case it gets /.ed

    The other models - 2800+, 3000+, and 3200+ are rated to operate at 65W while the 2700+ is rated to operate at 35W. The Pentium M processor models - 1.5Ghz, 1.6Ghz, and 1.7Ghz are set to operate at 24.5W. The AMD 2700+ budget Mobile processor still consumes more power than the Centrino platform, which uses Intel's Pentium M chips. Another big difference between the rest of Athlon64 Mobile processors from AMD and the 2700+ budget level Mobile processor is the amount of L2 cache. The 2700+ processor has 512KB cache while the rest of the models house 1MB cache. The 2700+ is clocked at 1.6Ghz; the same clock speed as the 2800+, which has 1MB L2 cache.

    • Re:tech info (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Naffer ( 720686 )
      The big problem that I see is that the CPU isn't responsible for all of the laptop's power consumption. The hard drive, GPU, chipset, RAM, and screen all use a ton of power too.
      That said, the one thing that Intel really did right was that Pentium-M processor. I desperatly tried to convince my friend to get one, but instead he bought an Alienware with a 3.06Ghz desktop chip. (No speed throttling ability whatsoever) The result? 55 minutes of battery life on a single batter, just shy of two hours with the

      • Re:tech info (Score:3, Informative)

        by addaon ( 41825 )
        The greatest power users in most laptops are, in decreasing order, cpu, screen, 802.11, gpu, hard drive, and other crap. Under normal usage, of course.
    • On a tangent - mod offtopic if you wish - I've been specing out a nice quiet system to replace my athelon and one of my concerns has been processor power consumption (it takes a big fan and or heat sink to dissipate 65 watts). Where did you get your stats on processor power consumption? Better yet, any place that lists something similar for video cards and/or harddrives (the other two biggest heat sources)?

      The only general data I've found has been fairly out of date and anecdotal.

      Cheers,
      - Sawbones

      • Re:tech info (Score:5, Informative)

        by number ( 309649 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @07:56PM (#9078933)
        What you want are the Processor Electrical Specifications [erols.com] for any and all CPUs you can think of.

        If you're serious about quiet (or preferably, silent) computing, the most valuable site I know of is Silent PC Review [silentpcreview.com].

      • Re:tech info (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Brian Stretch ( 5304 ) *
        What you have to remember is that the Athlon 64 series has very good power management, far better than Intel SpeedStep. When you're not doing anything stressful (say, reading Slashdot), the CPU slows and the core voltage drops down. The desktop Athlon 64's drop to 800MHz, my notebook says it's at 318MHz right now. If you need processing power that'll stomp a Pentium-M, it'll do that too. Oh, and you can run 64-bit Linux. And have the NX bit for neutralizing buffer overrun attacks in Windows XP SP2.

        The
    • Which is kind of curious that Pentium M have 1 MB (first gen) and 2 MB (next gen) L2s and still are lower power than AMD's chips yet perform about as well.

      I'd like to see AMD to be a credible force in mobile computing, but in the past, inefficient chips and IMO substandard mobile chipsets have hampered them, I don't see that improving just yet.

      • Re:tech info (Score:3, Insightful)

        by dago ( 25724 )
        Don't forget, AMD is rating the thermal power at maximum power drain, while Intel is rating them at typical usage, not maximum. So, it would be AMD_max = 35W vs Intel_avg = 25 W, and performance levels unknown.

        And a nice thing about mobile amd cpu is that they are compatible with desktop boards, where intel are not in practice (400$ boards don't count).

  • Big Mistake, AMD... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Deraj DeZine ( 726641 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @06:43PM (#9078350)
    They should have gone the other way, making fast, but hot processors, and then marketed their notebook/travel iron combos.

    No, I don't iron my clothes either, but it's the thought that counts, right?

    • Re:Big Mistake, AMD... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Thanks for proving my theory that any attempt at a joke that gets posted early will be modded up.

  • Less heat? (Score:5, Funny)

    by rms_nz ( 196697 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @06:43PM (#9078352)
    If laptops start producing less heat, then what are we going to use for leg warmers on those cold winterery days?

  • I bet these OC nicely (Score:2, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Generally, the less heat there is, the more room you have to try OC'ing. The current line of Mobile AMD processors has done very well.
    • Overclocking is just a bit over-rated.

      What does over-clocking gain you? CPU Errors(instability), extra-heat, voided warranty, and possibly a dead CPU. Yes, you can come up with ingenious ways to keep that chip cool, but is the result really worth it especially when the extra speed you gain will be available in a non-overclocked model next month?

      • Re:I bet these OC nicely (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Carnildo ( 712617 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @07:18PM (#9078595) Homepage Journal
        Only if you do it wrong. If you know how to overclock, it gains you:

        1) Serious savings. A low-speed CPU in a group can usually be overclocked to match the speed of the top CPU in that group without any special measures
        2) Extra speed. You can almost always clock a CPU 5%-10% beyond the top speed for a processor group. If you're lucky, or using extreme cooling, you can get 20% or more.

        And sometimes the extra speed isn't available for a while. When I purchased my current computer, the XP2100+ (266FSB) was the fastest CPU around. I got an XP2000+ (266FSB) and overclocked it to be an XP2200+ (333FSB), a chip that didn't show up until nine months later.

      • Re:I bet these OC nicely (Score:4, Informative)

        by Humorously_Inept ( 777630 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @07:22PM (#9078622) Homepage
        Actually, because of the way CPUs are binned to meet market demand, overclocking a CPU isn't necessarily doing anything to it that's bad. All CPUs are tested after fabrication and sold according to their capabilities. In the event that demand for a lower end processor is high, a processor that tests well can be marked as and sold as a lower-end model. It's still the same processor it was when it was tested, though. In this case, you might drop a CPU into your computer and experience exceptional overclocking potential. I have an XP1600+ that overclocks to 2200+ at default voltage and works ideally under a torturous FAH load. In fact, you could view the chip as being underclocked at the factory instead of overclocked by the user! :) Cooling is an important factor, but its nowhere near as important as good luck (or picking a good stepping).
  • Now what am I supposed to cook my eggs on????

  • Low Voltage Battery + Smaller battery = ? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SCSi ( 17797 ) <corvus@vadept. c o m> on Thursday May 06, 2004 @06:46PM (#9078372) Homepage
    So this means that laptops will still have the same low battery life as they do now. Why dont they make low voltage processors with larger batteries so you can get more than a few hours of runtime.
  • Even deep-water divers can take advantage of this technology!

  • Great news for people like myself... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by proxima ( 165692 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @06:52PM (#9078420)
    My next notebook will probably contain a low-power processor. There'e the Servelinux Enote for $800 that uses a Via processor like my mini-itx motherboard, but I suspect that AMD will be able to come up with something that's a little faster (it doesn't need to be blazing, but a 800 Mhz Via runs like a 600 Mhz P3 it seems).

    I'd like to have either a 2.5-3lb subnotebook with a nice 12" screen (and preferably below $1k, like the Servelinux), or a ~4lb notebook that gets a much longer battery life than anything else on the market (besides maybe a Mac), but also is below $1k. No CDROM or large screen needed in my case, cause I'm not looking for a desktop replacement.

    For now, though, the Servelinux enote is too obscure for me to look at it seriously, and I'll stick with my used 7020 (?) Toshiba Portege (at a little over 4 lbs I think, with a nearly useless battery).

    I've personally seen and played with the enote, anyone have comments on other laptops in the same category (maybe from Transmeta instead?). Cheap, light, and fast, pick three; I like cheap and light.

    • Re:Great news for people like myself... (Score:5, Funny)

      by proxima ( 165692 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @06:54PM (#9078444)
      Cheap, light, and fast, pick three; I like cheap and light.

      Whoops, I meant pick two of course.
    • "Cheap, light, and fast, pick three; I like cheap and light."

      OK, then.

      Go on eBay. You can get a Compaq Armada M300 (PIII 600, up to 384M of memory) for around $350. It's got a 11.5" XGA screen, it's 3.1lbs (including battery), and very thin and light (magnesium alloy case). It runs Windows XP and Linux fine, has a Cardbus slot for a wifi card, built in 56K and 10/100 ethernet, ATI Rage graphics with 4MB (horrible 3D, but fine for 2D), and a nice keyboard. Not to mention the fact that the power adaptor is
    • I'd like to have either a 2.5-3lb subnotebook with a nice 12" screen (and preferably below $1k, like the Servelinux), or a ~4lb notebook that gets a much longer battery life than anything else on the market (besides maybe a Mac)

      I'm looking for a light notebook with long battery life. I thought about going without a CD-ROM drive, and the ThinkPad X40 looks good in this category. However, I'd like to watch movies and play the occasional copy-protected game, so I'm waffling between an iBook and the ThinkPad

  • hmm (Score:5, Funny)

    by TechnologyX ( 743745 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @06:54PM (#9078440) Journal
    Ferrari line

    But I'm on a Ford Tempo budget.. guess it's back to leg burns for me
    • But I'm on a Ford Tempo budget..

      When they come out with hydrogen fuel cell laptops, please be sure not to get the Ford Pinto version.

  • What, for CMOS? (Score:4, Funny)

    by The Mainframe ( 573877 ) * <bennettprescott AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday May 06, 2004 @06:54PM (#9078445) Homepage Journal
    "The low-voltage chips will use smaller batteries and produce less heat."

    So these processors have built in batteries, eh? ;)

  • A non-overheating Italian car (Score:5, Funny)

    by b0s0z0ku ( 752509 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @06:55PM (#9078451)
    Acer plans to use them in their Ferrari line of thin laptops.
    Is this the same laptop that was reviewed here a while ago? The one that makes revving sounds when booted up? Anyway, there's something wrong with putting a cool-running processor in a product named after an Italian car. Italian cars are supposed to overheat - when I had my FIAT/Pininfarina Spyder, part of the fun was sitting in traffic on a hot, humid summer day with the heater fully on to avoid cooking the engine.
    b0s0z0ku

  • Ferarri Line (Score:4, Funny)

    by The_Rippa ( 181699 ) * on Thursday May 06, 2004 @06:56PM (#9078459)
    Great, tens of people will be enjoying the benefits of the new processor!

  • Why... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by rekoil ( 168689 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @06:58PM (#9078470)
    can't anyone see the appeal of using chips like these in a ultra-quiet desktop model? A/V hobbyists would go nuts over them, providing that the CPU horsepower is sufficient...
    • can't anyone see the appeal of using chips like these in a ultra-quiet desktop model?

      Home builders clamored for the K6-2+ and K6-III+ processors for the same reason, but they were difficult to obtain. I happily ran a Celeron 850 (~20 W, IIRC) without a CPU fan.

      Interestingly, Motorola markets the G4 (7457 and 7447A) used in the iBook, Powerbook, and iMac as an embedded processor. Now, if only Apple would market a headless iMac, like the old cube ...

    • providing that the CPU horsepower is sufficient..

      But there's always a trade-off.

    • Re:Why... (Score:3, Informative)

      by murgee ( 615127 )
      You can buy the Athlon XP Mobile chip now, and it works in a regular Athlon board. I'd imagine the same would be tru for the Athlon64 mobiles.. 'less you're talking about OEM machines.
    • You can get a MiniITX board with the Pentium M processor. Look for a "Lippert's Thunderbird". A 1.3GHz Pentium M can be run 100% passively cooled, and I think it is sufficient for a great many low to no noise needs.

  • Low Volt AMDs? (Score:3, Funny)

    by An-Unnecessarily-Lon ( 761026 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @06:58PM (#9078471) Journal
    Man I want my 1.21 jigawatt proccesor.

  • Side by Side? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by randomErr ( 172078 ) <ervin,kosch&gmail,com> on Thursday May 06, 2004 @07:09PM (#9078541) Journal
    Someone [slashdot.org] mentioned that Via's processors run slower then thier full powered conterparts. I can't wait until someone does a side-by=side of AMD/Via/Intel of the lower power chips.

  • quits seizing, wipes the drool off of his face and writes us up another gem about this one?

    Acer plans to use them in their Ferrari line of thin laptops.

    Vroom Vroom....

  • Source Bias? (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Looks like CoolTechZone is another FanBoi site (this one for AMD, or at least anti-Intel):

    "AMD is currently leading the desktop processor market without a doubt with it's 64-bit processors."

    Without a doubt? That sounds a little bit like "Ferrari is currently leading the automobile market without a doubt with it's Enzo model."

  • Yay, even hotter slow laptops! (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday May 06, 2004 @07:17PM (#9078593)
    Soon we'll have laptops with 1THz 128-bit CPUs that can have up to 16 simultaneous hyperthreads running, all blocked on dog-slow laptop hard disk I/O 99.9999% of the time. We won't notice because our penises will explode in a cloud of steam as soon as we turn them on.

    Awesome!

  • Low-voltage + PowerNow == PentiumM Competition (Score:5, Interesting)

    by david_reese ( 460043 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @07:23PM (#9078634)
    Previously, only the VIA and Transmeta chips were in the same range of power consumption (actually much less) as the Pentium-M (which, tho I'm an AMD fan, is a pretty sweet processor). But those processors were pretty lightweight in the power department.

    Now the Athlon64 mobiles, which already run at a cool 800Mhz when not taxed, combined with a voltage decrease, should create something that is at the same time powerful, yet battery-preserving.

    Kicker: it's AMD64, so if you have 64bit OS and apps, it will really dominate.

    • Actually they had Athlon XP-M low voltage models too, in the same range of power consumption as the new (Athlon64) ones. Fujitsu used them in their thin and light line, as well as Averatec. Probably a couple other thin and lights with them, as well. The summary for the article is a bit misleading, it makes it sound like these are the first LV cpus AMD has released. The actual news is that they're releasing LV Athlon64s.

    • Re:Low-voltage + PowerNow == PentiumM Competition (Score:4, Interesting)

      by evilviper ( 135110 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @11:13PM (#9080211) Journal
      Previously, only the VIA and Transmeta chips were in the same range of power consumption (actually much less)

      Why do people keep doing this? Sure VIA processors are lower power than current Intel/AMD processors, but that's because VIA processors have terrible performance. If you compare a 1GHz VIA processor to a 500MHz Pentium, you'll see that both the performance and power usage are very similar.

      I'm quite psyched about AMD's new processors though. AMD's XP procs have been beating Intel at maximum power consumption even with better performance, and AMD have finally started kicking their chipset manufacturers into line. I think the effect AMD64 had on AMD's whole company has been far more significant than the processor itself.

  • We Want Low Power CPU on the *DESKTOP* too (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Wolfier ( 94144 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @07:29PM (#9078668)
    I'm sure a lot of us are looking towards the day where we can eliminate all crazy spinning fans from our computers.

    • Re:We Want Low Power CPU on the *DESKTOP* too (Score:5, Informative)

      by Brian Stretch ( 5304 ) * on Thursday May 06, 2004 @10:43PM (#9080026)
      Or do the next best thing:

      1) Buy an Athlon 64 PC
      2) Enable PowerNow! power management
      3) Buy a power supply with a variable-speed fan (I recommend this one [siliconacoustics.com]) and enable CPU fan speed control on the motherboard (Q-Fan in ASUS's BIOS, IIRC).

      When you're just reading Slashdot, the CPU runs at 800MHz and power consumption drops waaay down. When you're playing UT2004, the CPU runs flat out and the fans speed up. It works extremely well.

    • Re:We Want Low Power CPU on the *DESKTOP* too (Score:4, Informative)

      by evilviper ( 135110 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @11:07PM (#9080176) Journal
      I'm sure a lot of us are looking towards the day where we can eliminate all crazy spinning fans from our computers.

      Here we go again...
      It always has been, and still is, entirely possible to have a system without any fans.

      Just about any processor can be run with nothing but a large heatsink provide that you underclock it significantly. Drop a 2GHz processor down to 800MHz and you probably won't need a fan.

      Oh, so you want a your system without a fan to be fast, eh? Well there's always water-cooling. But of course, you don't want to spend that much... Well, you can't have it all. If you choose silence, you have to spend a lot of money, or get poor performance.

      Personally, I think the best way to just to replace the crappy fans and heatsinks with a tempurature controlled themaltake... Then when your processor is cool the fans will be slow and silent, but when your processor are running hot, the fans can cool everything down. I happen to like that tradeoff the best.

      Choosing between AMD and Intel is difficult. Intel processor have a higher maximum tempurature, but they run cooler under typical load. AMD has recently been trying to fix this. This just happens to be a subject I detailed in my latest Journal entry [slashdot.org].
  • Hell must be frozen over...

    hey, they need those hot amd processos to heat the place you know...

  • Article and summary are wrong (Score:5, Informative)

    by The Wicked Priest ( 632846 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @07:33PM (#9078716)
    The announcement is of the mobile, low-voltage Athlon 64, not just the mobile, low-voltage Athlon -- which has been in the very machine I'm typing on for nearly a year. This is referenced in one place in the article, but the chips are misleadingly referred to simply as "Athlon" in the title, and several more times.
  • Now that is odd because normally higher voltages lead to smaller i-squared losses due to heat dissipation.

    Perhaps though on the chemical side, its tougher to generate higher voltages with batteries?
  • What's the power usage?

  • Electrical theory tutorial... (Score:3, Informative)

    by evilviper ( 135110 ) on Thursday May 06, 2004 @11:52PM (#9080462) Journal
    Lots of incorrect knowledge has been passing around /., so here's a nice quick tutorial about basic electricity.

    Everything electric needs a certain number of watts to operate. Your Computer is about the same as a 100watt lightbulb. Wattage is voltage times current (amps), which means, less votage requires more current to do the same ammount of work.

    Since voltage is not consumed, but current is, it only makes sense to use higher voltages, in order to preserve current. This can be seen very clearly on the specs of your computer's power supply. Your computer may need 100watts to operate, but you can choose between two different voltages. If you are running at 110v, you are drawing nearly 1 amp. However, if you throw the switch and plug in to 220v, you can operate the same equipment at under 1/2 amp.

    I know this is a bit difficult to understand, so let's go with the shower analogy... Voltage is like water pressure, and current is like the volume of water. When you screw-on a "water conserving" shower nossle, what it does is increase the pressure. That makes the water spray just as far, while using less water to do it.

    So, if you get the idea, you'll understand that decreasing a device's voltage does NOT mean you'll have better battery life. In fact, if all else remains equal, it guarantees worse battery life.

    Now, I'd bet that AMD is decreasing the current used, while also decreasing the voltage, but that's just an asumption. The story only says it's decreasing voltage, which doesn't improve your battery life at all.
    • Unfortunately (for you), your grade school science lecture on electricity is not applicable to the power consumption of a CPU. There is no meaningful comparison to be made between a passive device like a light bulb or a water pump, and a nonlinear device like a CPU.

      The dominant term in the CPU power consumption function is proportional to the square of the supply voltage, relating to the power consumed when charging a capacitor (or transistor). Using higher voltage can enable a CPU to achieve a greater c

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