X-bit labs

AMD Athlon 64 3800+ CPU: E3 Processor Core aka Venice at the Door (page 5)

Category: CPU

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

[ 04/03/2005 | 04:06 PM ]

Thermal Characteristics and Power Consumption

Since AMD promises that Venice core will allow the company to raise Athlon 64 working frequencies without any modifications of the mainboards processor voltage regulator, we decided to measure the electrical parameters of the newcomer at different frequencies. We have also measured the working temperatures of the Venice based processor. These parameters were compared with the corresponding measurements taken for Newcastle and Winchester based CPUs. When we measured the thermal parameters we used the following testbed:

• DFI NF4 Ultra-D mainboard;
• AVC Z7U7414001 cooler;
• 1024MB DDR400 SDRAM (Corsair CMX512-3200XLPRO, 2 x 512MB, 2-2-2-10);
• PowerColor RADEON X800 XT graphics card;
• Maxtor MaXLine III 250GB HDD.

First of all let’s take a look at the temperature measurements taken for two working modes: idle mode and under maximum CPU workload created by a special S&M utility version 0.3.2, which is the best tool for heating up the CPUs available today. The temperatures were taken from the thermal diodes built into the CPU cores.

Well, this is a pretty typical picture. In idle mode as well as in burn mode the temperature ratio for the different CPUs is the same. 0.13micron Newcastle core heats up much more than its fellows manufactured with finer technology. The new Venice core is a little bit warmer than Winchester, which is actually reflected in its official specification: the maximum CPU case temperature claimed for Venice is higher.

This way, it would be incorrect to claim that Dual Stress Liner technology used for Venice processors reduced their heat dissipation level. The major gain is definitely obtained from the higher frequency potential, but in no way from lower heat dissipation.