Re: Asserting that many, if not all, power hungry apps will blow away the TDP, & suffer a 50% performance loss! Doesn't anyone wonder why he doesn't offer any concrete examples of this truly nasty behavior?
Answer... There are no nasty examples.
The biggest handicap the Athlon core has had has been its increased power consumption relative to the PIII core. This has limited the use of Athlon core processors in small form factor business desktops, "appliance" PCs, and notebooks. It has also raised platform costs since Athlon core systems needed bigger power supplies and cases with better airflow. Intel's official power consumption numbers indicated that this situation would continue, if to a lesser degree, as Intel transitioned to the P4.
The article Peter Luc posted makes it clear that this is not the case. Despite the headline power consumption figures Intel has featured, P4's power consumption and cooling requirements turn out to be nearly identical to Athlon's, perhaps even more challenging. This is a very significant development because it removes one of the barriers to Athlon penetrating the corporate market.
Performance hits due to power throttling have been observed with PIII chips. The large heatsinks, side vented cases, and restricted ambient environment used in P4 benchmark systems have not shown such affects (that I'm aware of, at least). But if Intel ever starts selling large numbers of these systems into the mainstream, and less expensive cases start being used and pushed into corners and allowed to accumulate some dust and lint around their heatsinks (which is what happens to many PCs), there is a possibility that these affects could become quite common.
Regards,
Dan |
