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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Paul Engel who wrote (33783)	7/1/1998 11:49:00 AM
From: Ali Chen	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 1574029

Paul, <"maximum dissipation" ...I know exactly what it means - turn on the power> Yeah, Paul, it is clear that you are just a retired woodworker and not an engineer... I can try to help you again. Look at K6-2 specs at amd.com P.238 says: K6-2-300 typical power is 10.35W, and "maximum thermal power" is 17.2W, where "Typical power is determined for the typical instruction sequences or functions associated with normal system operation" Now what is the AMD definition of "maximum thermal power"? Looking at Page 13 of Appnote amd.com , you may find out: "A software utility has been developed to assist in testing thermal solutions. This utility executes a tight loop of instructions whose addressing and data have been defined to put the AMD-K6 processor in a state that dissipates the maximum thermal power." ... "The program executes in an infinite loop. While executing, the processor's case temperature can be measured. In addition, the actual power dissipation should be determined by measuring the voltage and current supplied to the processor." "The max_pow.exe and ex.exe utilities are available under a non-disclosure agreement. Contact your local AMD sales office for information." ----------------- So, if your analytical abilities are not exactly zero, you may conclude that the special AMD "maxpower test" draws about 170% of normal power. The "maxpower" conditions never happen in real applications for any significant duration of time but are provided for pure technical reasons to assist in designing reliable systems, mostly for secondary power supplies (for details of switching power supplies you may consult with John Wang-"Traveler" please :). Hope this helps. PS. <In fact - put a thermocouple on the CPU and measure the case temperature.> You tell me:)