Opteron EE :)

On Fri, 20 Feb 2004 02:52:05 GMT,
a?n?g?e?l@lovergirl.lrigrevol.moc.com (The little lost angel) wrote:

 >On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 22:14:44 +0000 (UTC), RusH <rush DeleteThis @pulse.pdi.net>
 >wrote:
 >
  >>http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20040217090304.html
  >>30W, say isn't that the Centrino range ?
 >
 >But the Centrino is lower than that no? And it doesn't say whether 30W
 >was the peak draw or some kind of optimized draw ala power saving mode
 >at 1/3 speed :PpPp

You apparently don't have to shave much off the speed so you can drop
the core voltage to get the power to plunge.

<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://users.erols.com/chare/elec.htm" target="_blank">http://users.erols.com/chare/elec.htm</a>

If you drop the Pentium-M to 1.1GHz, it draws only 12W. If you drop
it to 900MHz, it drops to 7W, and it will blow away a Via C3 drawing
comparable power.

RM<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Opteron EE :) 

On Fri, 20 Feb 2004 02:52:05 GMT,
a?n?g?e?l@lovergirl.lrigrevol.moc.com (The little lost angel) wrote:
 >On Thu, 19 Feb 2004 22:14:44 +0000 (UTC), RusH <rush.DeleteThis@pulse.pdi.net>
 >wrote:
 >
  >>http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/cpu/display/20040217090304.html
  >>30W, say isn't that the Centrino range ?
 >
 >But the Centrino is lower than that no?

A little bit, 24.5W TDP for the 1.5 - 1.7GHz Pentium-M.

 > And it doesn't say whether 30W
 >was the peak draw or some kind of optimized draw ala power saving mode
 >at 1/3 speed :PpPp

I'm pretty certain that it's TDP, though AMD is a tiny big vague on
the exact details. When they contrast them to the full-power Opterons
they use the TDP (89W) for those parts. Of course, it won't have the
dynamic power saving features of the Pentium-M (I'm not even sure if
they support "Cool 'n Quiet" on these chips), so the difference in
average power consumption between the two will probably be higher than
the 5.5W TDP difference would indicate.

Also the chip only runs at 1.4GHz, so it's not a top-end performance
part, but it's still pretty impressive. Should make a great chip for
dual-processor blades.

-------------
Tony Hill
hilla <underscore> 20 <at> yahoo <dot> ca<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Opteron EE :) 

Tony Hill <hilla_nospam_20.DeleteThis@yahoo.ca> wrote :

 > Also the chip only runs at 1.4GHz, so it's not a top-end
 > performance part, but it's still pretty impressive. Should make a
 > great chip for dual-processor blades.

So there goes Robert Myers Pentium-M fetish , It's Opty EE time now.

Pozdrawiam.
--
RusH //
<a style='text-decoration: underline;' href="http://pulse.pdi.net/~rush/qv30/" target="_blank">http://pulse.pdi.net/~rush/qv30/</a>
Like ninjas, true hackers are shrouded in secrecy and mystery.
You may never know -- UNTIL IT'S TOO LATE.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Opteron EE :) 

"Robert Myers" <rmyers RemoveThis @rustuck.com> wrote in message
news:phta3014cg008jaj1ocb2sb9sa87121ot6@4ax.com...
 >
 > If you drop the Pentium-M to 1.1GHz, it draws only 12W. If you drop
 > it to 900MHz, it drops to 7W, and it will blow away a Via C3 drawing
 > comparable power.

"Blow away"? Could you quantify that, Robert? 5% faster? 50%
faster?

And what is the price of the two chips in question, so we can judge
bang/buck? Seriously, I'd like to know.<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Opteron EE :) 

On Fri, 20 Feb 2004 19:19:31 GMT, "Felger Carbon" <fmsfnf DeleteThis @jfoops.net>
wrote:

 >"Robert Myers" <rmyers DeleteThis @rustuck.com> wrote in message
 >news:phta3014cg008jaj1ocb2sb9sa87121ot6@4ax.com...
  >>
  >> If you drop the Pentium-M to 1.1GHz, it draws only 12W. If you drop
  >> it to 900MHz, it drops to 7W, and it will blow away a Via C3 drawing
  >> comparable power.
 >
 >"Blow away"? Could you quantify that, Robert? 5% faster? 50%
 >faster?
 >
 >And what is the price of the two chips in question, so we can judge
 >bang/buck? Seriously, I'd like to know.
 >

More like 2x faster.

I did a quick mini-study. Suppose, I asked myself, you could get C3
ITX board real cheap and you didn't much care about how they were
assembled. What could you accomplish for an inexpensive, low power
system?

As I discovered, the answer is not much. You don't even have to go to
Intel's latest and greatest. Tualatin Celerons at comparable power
were at least 2x better than VIA cores running at the same power in
the benchmarks I looked at. The discrepancy was so bad that I decided
that there was nothing there worth wasting anybody's time on.

The only practical consequence of my little study for the world at
large (who, in general, woouldn't be interested in stacking up a dozen
or more ITX boards), is that the C3 looks like a bad choice for just
about any application except where you are rubbing the Buffalo off
every nickel, like the Walmart boxes.

That is to say, if you wanted to build (say), a very quiet, fanless
system, a low speed, low voltage low power chip reasonably current
chip from Intel or AMD would stomp a C3 (2x or so) in performance.
The only savings you would see would be that the CPU would be about
half as expensive (but the supporting hardware wouldn't come down
comparably in price, so it's not a good trade to make).

RM<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Opteron EE :) 

On Fri, 20 Feb 2004 18:11:09 -0500, Robert Myers <rmyers.TakeThisOut@rustuck.com>
wrote:
 >More like 2x faster.
 >
 >I did a quick mini-study. Suppose, I asked myself, you could get C3
 >ITX board real cheap and you didn't much care about how they were
 >assembled. What could you accomplish for an inexpensive, low power
 >system?
 >
 >As I discovered, the answer is not much. You don't even have to go to
 >Intel's latest and greatest. Tualatin Celerons at comparable power
 >were at least 2x better than VIA cores running at the same power in
 >the benchmarks I looked at. The discrepancy was so bad that I decided
 >that there was nothing there worth wasting anybody's time on.

I think you might be missing the point of the C3 partly, it's not just
about power consumption and performance, but also price.

Recently I saw a 1.2GHz VIA C3 processor + a motherboard being sold
together for $5 after rebates. Even before rebates they were selling
for only $55 or so.

This doesn't seem like a big deal for most of the market in Western
Europe and North America, but there are a lot of markets where those
sorts of low-prices start looking real good. VIA has seen a niche and
they are making money by selling to it. I would also guess that this
niche is growing as well.

 >The only practical consequence of my little study for the world at
 >large (who, in general, woouldn't be interested in stacking up a dozen
 >or more ITX boards), is that the C3 looks like a bad choice for just
 >about any application except where you are rubbing the Buffalo off
 >every nickel, like the Walmart boxes.

The price thing shouldn't be overlooked. Plus, don't forget, a lot of
applications just don't need very much processing power. One of the
two systems sitting beside me is a PentiumMMX underclocked down to
133MHz, and it provides more PLENTY of processing power for the tasks
it does. The only time I ever feel the pinch for processing power is
when compiling stuff on that machine, but even then I just start it up
while doing something else and come back an hour or two later. While
a 900MHz Pentium-M might provide MUCH more processing power than any
VIA C3 chips, a 600MHz VIA C3 would provide much more processing power
than I need.

-------------
Tony Hill
hilla <underscore> 20 <at> yahoo <dot> ca<!-- ~MESSAGE_AFTER~ -->
 >> Stay informed about: Opteron EE :)