Super low power AMD processor possible?

T

The_Moves

Limp Gawd
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Oct 8, 2008
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I'm curious if it is possible to use one of the Black Edition CPUs with decrease the multiplier and voltage to get a really low power CPU?

Toms Hardware did an article with an Athlon 64 2000+ that was at 8 watts, though it doesn't actually exist in retail. I was curious if it was possible to create your own super low power CPU, below the 45 Watt procs that you can buy online? Granted the Black Editions are Dual Core, but would they be the best option?

Here is a link to the article:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/Atom-Athlon-Efficient,1997.html

Thanks
 
doesn't exist in retail.......yet. Q4 here she comes! the price will be at $100 tho.
 
An AMD BE-2400 System (45 watt dual core ~4400+ X2 speeds) will blow the socks off the Atom for about 10 watts more in overall system power at idle, and about 30 watts more at load --- from what I can determine. I'm looking into building a low power windows 2008 home server. I was considering the atom, but apparently it kinda lacks a bit of horsepower, not that big of a deal in itself, depending on your applcation, but the 945 chipset that the Atom uses is horribly in-efficient so you still end up with a total system draw of about 40 watts at idle. The total system draw on a minimally configured AMD BE-2400 processor setup with an AM2 montherboard is ~50 watts at idle. For 20% more power you get probably 100% more performance.

The Asus EEE PC that is available now at buy.com for $130 uses a newer chipset for the atom and supposedly it does about 30 watts at idle, but to my knowledge you can't get that chipset outside of a EEE PC.
 
Is there anything available from AMD that could possibly run with just a heatsink? I've been kicking around the idea of building a fanless HTPC to mostly act as a DVR. Fanless system and a couple of quiet 1TB drives if such a thing exists.
 
I almost think if you underclocked a BE-2400 processor and had a good motherboard where you could lesson the voltage you might be able to do it there. My BE-2400 was only slightly warm to the touch even under load with a standard retail AMD heatsink. I imagine you'd need case fans though or the heat would just build up inside the case from your two 1TB drives, motherboard, cpu, etc. and in reality you can get near silent heatsink/fan combos that you'd NEVER hear in a case anyway.
 
The reason I posed the question above was because I was looking at creating my own NAS. I wanted to make it as power efficient as possible while having a great chipset with Gigabit Ethernet, 4 to 6 integrated sata ports, and a couple of PCI Express slots for additional RAID cards (Using software RAID). I believe the current single core Atom is underpowered for what I want to do, and the chipset that it uses is lacking.

I don't necessarly want to talk about the NAS as it is for a different section, just curious about the low power processor possibilities.
 
I swear i saw a review site running a low power x2 BE at like 1k or 1500mhz with just a basic heatsink on it nothing fancy or maybe even without... back during those atom benchmark weeks.
 
I'm running a 65w 5000+ fanless in my HTPC at stock speeds w/ the Scythe Mini Ninja. It works just fine. Just make sure you have a little bit of ambient air flow going through your case and it isn't 85F degrees in your room.
 
Yup, you can't beat it for the money. I just built my new mini-computer with the BE-2400.
 
Archaea said:
An AMD BE-2400 System (45 watt dual core ~4400+ X2 speeds) will blow the socks off the Atom for about 10 watts more in overall system power at idle, and about 30 watts more at load --- from what I can determine.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the 945GC-based Atom boards have terrible system power consumption.

I have a BE-2400 server with pretty low power usage: 36W from the wall at idle/light load with the hard drive spinning (few watts less with the hard drive not spinning), under 70W at the wall under full load. I wrote about it here: http://www.hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1032940904&postcount=63 I would prefer something even more power efficient, but what can I expect from a $20 case+PSU, $25 motherboard and $25 CPU? ;)
 
ECS GF7025. :p It came with a $54 Athlon X2 5200+ at Fry's.
 
Here's how you get power consumption down to 5-15w for an x2:

Buy any X2. Turn off Cool 'n Quiet.

Reduce the multiplier to 5x, and reduce the voltage to 1.1v or less. This is actually the setting the chip idles at when you have Cool 'n Quiet enabled, and ALL AMD processors are guaranteed to work at that speed and voltage. If you're doing this using software, 1.1v is as low as you can go...but you can push the voltage even lower if your BIOS supports it - just test each increment with Prime95.

Even at that low speed, the X2 will still clobber the Via Nano and other similar processors. Combine it with a low-power chipset and you are set!
 
Does anyone know of a review that 'Underclocks' a processor (blackedition or not)? Or can someone test it?

Everyone focuses on Overclocking, i want to do the opposite :)
 
I actually have one of those Socket 754 Athlon 64 CPU's, that are listed as an Athlon 64 1500+. It has a 5X multiplier, and allegedly consumes only 9 watts, running at 1.0 GHz, with a core voltage of under 1.0.

Surprisingly pretty good performance, even at 1.0 GHz...

I suspect with today's CPU's you might be able to get even under that number, without any trouble.
 
Nice post, I have also been looking for more info on low power options. I am looking to build 2 low power usage budget systems in the near future. One to operate as my firewall and the other will start out as a file server.

I haven't been overly impressed with the Intel Atom in the current offerings out side netbooks. I see a lot of potential in the Atom but right now Intel seems to be focused on the embedded systems market. I am excited about what the future may hold but for the here and now I will pass on the Atom.

I have been looking at using a AMD 790GX, A6A based system for my needs. I just haven't settled on a specific board or CPU yet. I haven't had much luck looking in to under clocking options offered on the 790GX boards. And then for my firewall I have to make sure the hardware is supported.

But once done I will have a low power file server that only needs a BIOS tweak to handle any other tasks I decide to throw at it in the future. I will also finally be able to trash this POS router I am stuck with at the moment. The new firewall system will be total overkill but once I am done with the new house and network upgrades. I will sit down and look for a more practical solution and find a new task for the old system, maybe turn it in to an HTPC.

Anyway like the OP I will have a thread in another section when the hardware comes in. The BE 2400 sounds like it will be very reasonable on power consumption. Now I just need to select a board and decide what direction I want to go with drives for the file server.
 
Interesting thread. You could also use a Turion if you have an old 754 board around. Performance is great and the chips are easy to find cheap on ebay. I've been very happy with my low power server setups.
 
Does a 1Ghz AMD chip outpreform a 1.6Ghz Atom.

If so --- Why does the Atom receive such accolades?
 
Archaea said:
Does a 1Ghz AMD chip outpreform a 1.6Ghz Atom.

If so --- Why does the Atom receive such accolades?
Click to expand...

Yes and because it's super low powered, it just barely sips watts while the AMD solution takes decent size sips.

What kills the Atom is that the 945G chipset is whats eating more then three times the energy that the Atom does. If Intel ever let anyone pair it up with a G45 then it would give anything a run for it's money as an HTPC.
 
^ why is it so awesome when a 3+ year old competitor chip when underclocked and undervolted can preform faster at nearly the same wattage. Tomshardware shows the AMD solution is clearly much better for an overall system wattaget that is comparable.

(actually AMD's solution is double - - 8 watts, but who really cares when you are talking about 4 watts vs. 8 watts.)
 
Using a mini-ITX 780G IGP mobo and trying to figure out which CPU to use for sme low power consumption builds. What do you guys think would be the best, BE-2400, LE-1250 , LE-1620 or some other option (keeping under $50 per cpu)? I have read sites that list the BE-2400 as 45w and also 65w...which is it? Dual core is not too important, nothing I run on these builds will take much advantage of two cores. A faster single core would be better, but low power consumption is primary, as I think even a 1.5ghz cpu would be sufficient.
 
Archaea said:
Does a 1Ghz AMD chip outpreform a 1.6Ghz Atom.

If so --- Why does the Atom receive such accolades?
Click to expand...
Atom in netbooks is awesome: very low power (2W TDP, 100mW idle) paired with a low power chipset. It's possible to get very good battery life in a small form factor (9" and under). That's where the bulk are sold anyways.

The architecture is very different between the two. The A64 2000+ is the usual 3 integer, out of order execution core typical of AMD and Intel designs (pre-Core2 for Intel). Atom is a new 2 integer, in order execution core that supports executing 2 threads in some models, and now there are even dual core desktop Atoms.

As mentioned above, it's the poor 945GC chipset that holds back the desktop version. A board using the 945GCM (rumored to be coming) would show much better results.
 
The Atom is shit imo. Every one shits on VIA but its cpu's are just as good as the Atom. I would rather see AMD release a severly underclocked cpu then waste my time with the Atom.. All it is a severly castrated P4. The Atom and the P4 share lots of architectural similarities. I used a Netbook and honestly I wasn't really impressed that much. I've seen 12 inch Turion based Notebooks that felt faster and had a very good batter life as well for not more then 600 dollars, new models of Atom books are hiting that mark already anyway.
 
Wrench00 said:
All it is a severly castrated P4. The Atom and the P4 share lots of architectural similarities.
Click to expand...
Atom is nothing like the P4 in virtually any way than both support 2 threads (Northwood and later for P4, and as enabled for either) and using a FSB. It is different in virtually every other way from Netburst, and even different than P6, Core and Core 2. It's a new core based on power saving techniques.

At least try to read an article on Atom before jumping to wrong conclusions. I'll get you started: http://www.anandtech.com/cpuchipsets/showdoc.aspx?i=3276
 
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