Atom, Athlon, or Nano? Energy-Savers Compared

Once AMD and Intel realized that pure clock speed isn’t the only way to improve performance, they started focusing on multi-core processors. They’ve been refining this concept by improving efficiency. The level of per-watt performance is what matters the most today, which is one of the main reasons for Intel’s success with its Core 2 processor family. But there are more than enough applications that do not require a lot of performance, and this is where AMD, Intel and VIA aim their low-power platforms. Here is an article where Tom’s Hardware compared an Athlon 64 2000+, Atom 230, Nano L2100 with the goal of figuring out which solutions serve up enough speed.

Conclusion

We found it amazing to see all three competitors doing a good job when it comes to offering low-power systems, although the approaches are fundamentally different. AMD has its efficient 780G mainstream system with integrated graphics, which we equipped with a low-power Athlon 64 2000+ model at 8 W TDP. Intel’s Atom platform is based on an ECS motherboard using the 945G chipset that isn’t really a low-power product. But the Atom 230 processor requires so little power that it still hits the same 28 W idle power level as AMD and VIA’s devices do.

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AMD 2.3GHz Athlon 6500 Kuma

Amd "Kuma" processor we've all been waiting for has finally arrived as the latest edition to the "Stars" family: the 2.3GHz Athlon 6500. Expreview, who recently got their hands on one of the chips, is touting it to be AMD's "best dual core ever" after a benchmark test where it ranked highest in overall performance against the Brisbane 2.6MHz and 2.3MHz Athlon64 X2 5000+. The Kuma also held its own with overclocking, easily reaching 3GHz at default voltage, and hitting 3.4GHz with a voltage increase. A 20W higher power consumption was noted as the primary con, with conjectures that it might be an "Agena with two cores disabled." The 65nm chip offers HT3.0 support, DDR2-1066 support via an integrated controller, Cool'n'Quiet 2.0, a shared 2MB L3 cache, includes SSE4A support, and will retail for around $110 when it hits store shelves.

From our test result, you can see lots of improvements have been done compare to Brisbane core. Take benchmark tool PCMark Vantage as an example, we've experienced about 8% in total score increase. You can see more improvement in real game and video transcode software: a same MPG video clip transcode, Kuma only used 1min 37sec, but Brisbane need 2min 26sec to finish the job, very impressive.

In other words, Kuma is more better than other AMD dual core, not only the basic performance, the overclocking and memory ratio adjustment are also proved that the CPU is AMD's advancement in dual core arena.

Power consumption is one of con of Kuma. We don't know if Kuma is a Agena with two cores disabled, but it really feels like. In default clock Athlon 6500 is 300MHz lower than Athlon64 X2 5000+, but power consumption is 20W higher no matter idle or active.

It is still unclear that AMD will position the Kuma on which level. Till now we didn't see the product hit local market massively, only some E-tailers listed the Kuma CPU Athlon 6500. So if you got any info about the CPU's availability, please leave a comment here.


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AMD introducing new bussines class Phenom and Athlon CPUs

AMD announced four new "business class" Phenom processors, which essentially means that these processors are made available for a platform that won’t change for at least two years and include a 3-year warranty.

AMD Phenom business class cpuThe four new Phenom processors extend AMD’s B-series platform, which also includes a motherboard carrying either AMD’s 780V or Nvidia’s MCP78 chipset, to a total of 11 processors. The new models include the Phenom X4 9750B (2.4 GHz/95 watt), the Phenom X3 8750B (2.4 GHz/95watt), the Athlon X2 5600B (2.9 GHz/65 watt) and Athlon X2 4850B (2.5 GHz/45 watt) processors.

Pricing was announced, but we expect AMD to continue its business class pricing strategy, which means that these processors will be offered with a premium of close to 20% on the high-end and about 10% on the lower end when compared to non-B-series processors of the same main product family and comparable clock speeds.

In contrast, the sequence numbers of the preceding B2-series, which included the TLB bug, ended on full hundreds. The first B-series Phenoms were the 9600B and 8600B, which indicated that these are processors with the B2-series core. However, the 9600B and 8600B processors are actually B3-series CPUs. As if the sequence numbering system isn’t already confusing enough, AMD has now some inconsistencies of B2/B3 markers within the same product family, which does not necessarily make a purchase decision much easier, especially, if you are trying to figure out which processors have the TLB bug and which do not.