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On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 9:32 PM, Dale <rdalek1967@×××××.com> wrote: |
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> Michael Mol wrote: |
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>> On Wed, Jul 25, 2012 at 8:21 PM, Dale <rdalek1967@×××××.com> wrote: |
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>>> The point made about producing less heat with the smaller nm sounds |
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>>> reasonable tho. |
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>> Less heat with the smaller nm, but only if all other things remain equal! |
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>> |
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>> In reality, manufacturers use additional margin within their TDP to |
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>> improve the product otherwise. Perhaps they increase the clock speed |
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>> somewhat. Perhaps they increase the amount of on-die cache. Perhaps |
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>> they reduce the instruction pipeline. |
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>> |
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>> AMD, for example, has tended to maintain keep something in the market |
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>> for a 125W, 95W and 65W TDPs for several years. Each year, the |
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>> functionality that used to be in a 125W TDP processor shows up in a |
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>> 95W TDP processor, and the latest 125W TDP processor beats the pants |
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>> off of last years'. |
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>> |
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> |
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> |
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> I found this to be plain weird when I built my new rig. My old rig was |
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> a AMD 2500+ single core system with 2Gbs of ram. It pulled about 400 |
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> watts or so for normal desktop use. A little more when compiling and |
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> such. My new rig, AMD Phenom II 955 with four cores and 16Gbs of ram. |
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> Heck, just a single core is much faster than my old rig. Thing is, the |
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> new rig pulls less than half of what the old one pulls, WHILE |
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> COMPILING. I can't recall the nm part but I think the CPU I got for my |
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> old rig was supposed to be for laptop use. |
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> |
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> AMD sure is getting more efficient as you point out. I still wonder |
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> where we will be in 10 years. Just how fast can they make them? |
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> |
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> Dale |
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> |
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> :-) :-) |
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> |
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> -- |
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> I am only responsible for what I said ... Not for what you understood or how you interpreted my words! |
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> |
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> |
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|
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Definitely OT but that's surely not because of the CPU, or at least |
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not only the CPU. Many people highly underestimate the value of a |
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good and efficient power supply, which can make a huge difference. |
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This is one of those things that companies such as Dell like to cut |
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costs on because the average user neither sees the PSU specifications |
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nor knows enough to ask about it. Of course, efficiency within the |
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entire computer helps, but a bad power supply can really hurt your |
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electric bill. |
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|
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On topic, AMD is definitely getting more efficient but mostly because |
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that's where the technology is headed in general -- Intel seems to do |
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a better job at efficiency per core but they also use hyper threading, |
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whereas AMD is putting their bets into more physical cores. Yes, I'm |
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going to say it again, but AMD is what you want for multitasking. |
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They are switching their goals from high-performance cores to |
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highly-concurrent CPUs, GPUs, and APUs. |
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Concurrency is the future, it's just hard for a lot of people to think |
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in such a way (and our technology doesn't leverage it to its full |
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capacity). Just look at the human brain: "a maximum of 1,000 nerve |
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impulses per second is possible. However, firing rates of 1 per second |
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to 300-400 per second are more typical."[1] Basically the average |
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neuron seems to be about only 300Hz, but there are trillions upon |
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trillions of synapses within the brain. I don't know about you, but I |
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am, allegedly, a fully-functioning, self-aware, intelligent being. |
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[1] http://www.noteaccess.com/APPROACHES/ArtEd/ChildDev/1cNeurons.htm |
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