Low Dissipation Guaranteed

As usual, AMD has given some thought to power consumption. Dissipation has improved drastically on the midrange processors, but the CPUs in the premium class have gotten worse.

Based on AMD's figures, all single-core Athlon 64 processors feature thermal dissipation levels lowered by 27 W, corresponding to 30% less power consumption. Power to the X2 processors has been reduced by 19%, from 110 to 89 W. Compared to its predecessor, the FX-60, the Athlon 64 FX-62 has added no less than 15 W to now stand at 125 W. This puts the top models from Intel and AMD on an almost level footing.

The CPUs still feature Cool 'n' Quiet technology, enabling the Athlon 64 X2 5000+ to gear down from 89 W to 31 W, while reducing voltage from 1.3 to 1.1 V. On the Athlon 64 FX-62, power is cut back from 125 W to 38 W.

Dissipation is measured for the complete system. It consists of the following components: mainboard with CPU and RAM, graphics card (7800 GTX), two hard drives, DVD-ROM, and power supply unit (PC Power & Cooling Turbocool 510 SSI).

CPU dissipation is measured without Cool 'n' Quiet or Speedstep, as these settings are not possible with all test samples.

In dual-core processors both cores are affected at maximum load.

When it comes to dissipation, AMD is still well ahead. Compared to the old platform, power has been cut back on most CPUs.