Hi Saturn V; I don't know if someone has mentioned this yet, but there is another possible reason why AMD is keeping the voltage the same.
The Athlon .25 uses an incredible amount of power. The current was something like 45 amps. Maybe they were running the old ones at a derated voltage in order to prevent them from catching on fire... Everybody, who overclocks, knows that the Athlons run a lot faster than their rated speed. From what I've read, in order to get them to go faster, you have to reduce the voltage. To me, this indicates that the chip is thermally limited, certainly not voltage limited.
The formula for power consumption, P =fCV^2, indicates that voltage is doubly significant in power consumption. So derating your voltage by 10% results in a power reduction of 20%. It is also well known that the Athlon is pushing the power consumption limits of the motherboard. I am suggesting that they were pushing the power dissipation limits of the chip, as well.
The Athlon was designed to be a .18u chip, so that is where it will shine, not on the .25u process.
I'm guessing that the new process speeds them up by at least 100MHz, possibly much, much more. But I'm not a process guy like some of the rest of you, so what do I know.
-- Carl |
