AMD Phenom II X2 550 BE & Athlon II X2 250

Want to talk about one of the articles in SPCR? Here's the forum for you.
accord1999
Posts: 84
Joined: Thu Dec 01, 2005 7:39 pm

Post by accord1999 » Wed Jun 10, 2009 10:55 pm

loimlo wrote:Techreport's power draw is a far cry from SPCR's result.
Techreport's systems are also significantly different, most notably using the 4870 which has high idle power use. The C2D Intel systems also use the more power hungry X48 chipset versus the SPCR review with the P45.

accord1999
Posts: 84
Joined: Thu Dec 01, 2005 7:39 pm

Post by accord1999 » Wed Jun 10, 2009 10:56 pm

MikeC wrote:A counterpoint to the lostcircuits findings is at http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/cpu/di ... html#sect0 -- they obtained similar results as we did, and they were using an FX (no onboard video) board for AMD.
So does hardware.fr:

http://www.hardware.fr/articles/762-3/a ... 2-550.html

Thomas
Posts: 664
Joined: Mon Jun 20, 2005 11:21 pm
Location: Denmark

Post by Thomas » Thu Jun 11, 2009 12:24 am

dvdmonster wrote:I would like to see how the Athlon II X2 250 preforms against the 5050e/4850e/BE2400. This is pretty easy drop in replacement, and very interesting for all those with low power 780G systems.
I'm also very interested in this :-)

loimlo
Posts: 762
Joined: Thu May 03, 2007 3:58 am
Location: Formosa

Post by loimlo » Thu Jun 11, 2009 1:27 am

accord1999 wrote:
loimlo wrote:Techreport's power draw is a far cry from SPCR's result.
Techreport's systems are also significantly different, most notably using the 4870 which has high idle power use. The C2D Intel systems also use the more power hungry X48 chipset versus the SPCR review with the P45.
I didn't mean absolutely identical circumstance. What I meant far cry was the power draw difference between AM2+ and AM3 board with the same CPU, HDD in SPCR review compared to Techreport's counterpart. In contrast, Techreport displayed very close power figures between AM2+ and AM3 board with the same CPU, HDD. Please take a look at italized, bold words in my previous posts.

hans007
Posts: 80
Joined: Sun Oct 09, 2005 3:37 am

Post by hans007 » Sun Jun 28, 2009 1:37 am

dvdmonster wrote:Is it me, or does this article seem a bit.. ehh, rushed?
Why test against a discontinued Intel processor?
Why not run tests with integrated gfx on/off to see if it's acually off.

I would like to see how the Athlon II X2 250 preforms against the 5050e/4850e/BE2400. This is pretty easy drop in replacement, and very interesting for all those with low power 780G systems.

Let's see some updated number please 8)
I just bought an athlon ii x2 250 to try out on my itx box. I have a 5050e also.

And previous to that I had a be-2400.

That said I don tknow what the max power would be ... but oddly the 250 is not that low power even though its 45nm.



My system is a j&w minix-780g itx board, 4gb ram, a 1.5 TB green power and a dvdrw. Its usingan inwin-bm643 which has a 120watt power supply (it is not quite as efficient as say an earthwatts 380 which i tested this on before i got this case).


That said... idle power for the be-2400 was 40 watts. The 5050e can get down to 38-39watts on occasion.

The athlon II x2 250 is really disappointing. its idling at 49-50 watts. I mean the bios sees it correctly but maybe its not calibrated right? Its running at just about 1V and 800mhz at idle just like the 5050e, but its using up 11watts more at idle.

Orthos load it spikes to just over 105 watts. The 5050e never got over 91 watts.

Granted my inwin power supply is not super efficient, but the kill-a-watts is reporting 11watts higher idle, and 15 or so watts higher peaks.

Anyhow, i'm disappointed. very disappointed.

Mats
Posts: 3044
Joined: Fri Dec 26, 2003 6:54 am
Location: Sweden

Post by Mats » Sun Jun 28, 2009 3:38 am

hans007: Are you using the latest BIOS that came four days ago?
Are you using the right drivers from AMD?

Here's something I don't really believe in, but I must ask: Have you tried reinstalling Windows?
My Core Duo laptop fan gets crazy if I replace the CPU with a Core 2 Duo. Reinstalling solves the problem.

hans007
Posts: 80
Joined: Sun Oct 09, 2005 3:37 am

Post by hans007 » Sun Jun 28, 2009 4:24 am

Mats wrote:hans007: Are you using the latest BIOS that came four days ago?
Are you using the right drivers from AMD?

Here's something I don't really believe in, but I must ask: Have you tried reinstalling Windows?
My Core Duo laptop fan gets crazy if I replace the CPU with a Core 2 Duo. Reinstalling solves the problem.
Oh wow, i didnt realize 1.5 was out.

The j&w support guy was saying that but guys in the j&w bbs were saying 1.4 worked fine (which is what I have).

I will have to redo this all with 1.5 and see if there is a difference. I"m assuming the power down of sections of the chip could be different.

I have the right drivers for amd though, thats why my 5050e. works.

hans007
Posts: 80
Joined: Sun Oct 09, 2005 3:37 am

Post by hans007 » Sun Jun 28, 2009 4:49 am

hans007 wrote:
Mats wrote:hans007: Are you using the latest BIOS that came four days ago?
Are you using the right drivers from AMD?

Here's something I don't really believe in, but I must ask: Have you tried reinstalling Windows?
My Core Duo laptop fan gets crazy if I replace the CPU with a Core 2 Duo. Reinstalling solves the problem.
Oh wow, i didnt realize 1.5 was out.

The j&w support guy was saying that but guys in the j&w bbs were saying 1.4 worked fine (which is what I have).

I will have to redo this all with 1.5 and see if there is a difference. I"m assuming the power down of sections of the chip could be different.

I have the right drivers for amd though, thats why my 5050e. works.
ok it made no difference. I guess a 5050e is just more power efficient than a 250. Either that or this board sucks real bad (until now i've found it really really good and fully featured so i'm thinking no)

Mats
Posts: 3044
Joined: Fri Dec 26, 2003 6:54 am
Location: Sweden

Post by Mats » Sun Jun 28, 2009 5:06 am

hans007 wrote:I have the right drivers for amd though, thats why my 5050e. works.
Well given that the 250 is new you might need a newer driver. I doubt it though, but it's worth a try.

hans007
Posts: 80
Joined: Sun Oct 09, 2005 3:37 am

Post by hans007 » Sun Jun 28, 2009 5:09 am

Mats wrote:
hans007 wrote:I have the right drivers for amd though, thats why my 5050e. works.
Well givent that the 250 is new you might need a newer driver. I doubt it though, but it's worth a try.
well i have the newest catalyst, and the latest amd cpu driver.

it was correclty throttling it down to 800 mhz from 3 ghz and lowering thevoltage from 1.36 to 1.016. just seems to use more power than you'd expect from a 45nm dual core. I had a 3.1 ghz brisbane G2 6000+ (95W tdp max) before and at idle, even that used barely more than the 5050e (which makes sense since it also will go down to 1ghz and nearly as low a voltagE), so the 11W disparity seems really odd with the x2 250.

I think maybe the athlon II x2 250 is not that power efficient. AMD is not even releasing a 45W version apparently... bu tthere will be a 600e quad 45w so maybe that will be the cpu to upgrade to later.

Mats
Posts: 3044
Joined: Fri Dec 26, 2003 6:54 am
Location: Sweden

Post by Mats » Sun Jun 28, 2009 5:18 am

hans007 wrote:AMD is not even releasing a 45W version apparently... bu tthere will be a 600e quad 45w so maybe that will be the cpu to upgrade to later.
Don't expect lower idle power draw just because it have a lower TDP.

Do you notice the performance difference between the CPU's when using it?

hans007
Posts: 80
Joined: Sun Oct 09, 2005 3:37 am

Post by hans007 » Sun Jun 28, 2009 5:48 am

Mats wrote:
hans007 wrote:AMD is not even releasing a 45W version apparently... bu tthere will be a 600e quad 45w so maybe that will be the cpu to upgrade to later.
Don't expect lower idle power draw just because it have a lower TDP.

Do you notice the performance difference between the CPU's when using it?
I did not do anything particularly strenuous. I'm sure it is faster, but for just say surfing the web, etc it make sno difference at all.

I'm sure it'd help in encoding or games etc. the extra cache and clock surely will help.

also good point about idle power and a lower TDP. I know the 600e is only 2.2 ghz, so that does make sense, hopefully they improve the idle power, as 4 cores instead of 2 cores similar to the ii x2 250, would probably be more idle draw unless they change something.

sputnik-1
Posts: 4
Joined: Wed Oct 08, 2008 8:54 pm
Location: Finland

Post by sputnik-1 » Fri Jul 03, 2009 1:25 am

How is the stock cooler of these CPUs (especially the 550)? Is it of any use, e.g. with a fan replacement? I couldn't find a mention of it in the article.

frostedflakes
Posts: 1608
Joined: Tue Jan 04, 2005 4:02 pm
Location: United States

Post by frostedflakes » Fri Jul 03, 2009 7:26 pm

Mariner wrote:Hmm. I'm slightly disappointed with the apparent undervolting ability of the Athlon II X2, especially when compared to the Brisbane Athlon X2s.

I suppose I may have been hoping for too much - after all, the core speed of this Athlon II is up to 3GHz - but it would seem that Intel's 45nm process (or possibly just their architecture?) is perhaps a little more advanced than that of AMD and may allow greater levels of undervolting.

It would, however, be interesting to see some undervolting/power draw figures with the Athlon II downclocked to, say, 2.5GHz.
I thought it was pretty impressive, but I guess that's because I'm comparing it to my 65nm X2 that can't even do 2.3GHz at 1.35V. :P

For AMD the 45nm node is a big improvement over 65nm, but as the review makes clear they still can't really compete with Intel in terms of performance per watt, which is kind of disappointing. I'd still like to pick up an AMD quad eventually for various other reasons, though.

aristide1
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 4284
Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2003 6:21 pm
Location: Undisclosed but sober in US

Post by aristide1 » Tue Sep 15, 2009 3:41 pm

Too bad Mike C didn't get his hands on an X3 705e as well.

720 runs at 1.425V, a 95 watt part
705e runs at 1.25V, a 65 watt part

The 705e runs at the same voltage as the 4850e.

MikeC
Site Admin
Posts: 12285
Joined: Sun Aug 11, 2002 3:26 pm
Location: Vancouver, BC, Canada
Contact:

Post by MikeC » Tue Sep 15, 2009 8:01 pm

aristide1 wrote:Too bad Mike C didn't get his hands on an X3 705e as well.

720 runs at 1.425V, a 95 watt part
705e runs at 1.25V, a 65 watt part

The 705e runs at the same voltage as the 4850e.
We have one -- along with some new AMD chips. Review coming soon.

aristide1
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 4284
Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2003 6:21 pm
Location: Undisclosed but sober in US

Post by aristide1 » Wed Sep 16, 2009 2:00 pm

hans007 wrote:That said... idle power for the be-2400 was 40 watts. The 5050e can get down to 38-39watts on occasion.

The athlon II x2 250 is really disappointing. its idling at 49-50 watts. I mean the bios sees it correctly but maybe its not calibrated right? Its running at just about 1V and 800mhz at idle just like the 5050e, but its using up 11watts more at idle.

Orthos load it spikes to just over 105 watts. The 5050e never got over 91 watts.

Granted my inwin power supply is not super efficient, but the kill-a-watts is reporting 11watts higher idle, and 15 or so watts higher peaks.

Anyhow, i'm disappointed. very disappointed.
But isn't the whole question of efficiency also in respect to the amount of work done? You noted the spikes when loading Orthos, but did it load quicker? Was the spike of a shorter duration? If your pc is mostly idle then yes idle consumption is a high priority, but if the processor completes its work quicker then the power penalty may not be as big as your fear.

A similar situation when one Intel chip switched to a smaller technology (I think it was from 90 to 65nm). Yes all things being equal it should have been cooler and had lower power draw, but it contained a lot more transistors and they performed more functions, so the heat and power issues didn't change as much as expected. And after thinking about it, the results really are what one would expect.

I have no idea if the X2 250 is more powerful, I haven't seen enough stats yet to make such a comparison.
frostedflakes wrote:I'd still like to pick up an AMD quad eventually for various other reasons, though.
You own stock in the local utility company?

aristide1
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 4284
Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2003 6:21 pm
Location: Undisclosed but sober in US

Post by aristide1 » Thu Sep 17, 2009 6:42 pm

Hey Mike C,

I'm looking at page 4 of the article the "Benchmark Power Consumption (Watt-hours)" chart.

I'm wondering if you consider the TMPGEnc test the most cpu intensive and most likely to be multi-threaded? The reason I ask on this one particular task the undervolted 250 comes awfully close to the Intel E7200 in terms of efficiency.

On the other end of the spectrum NOD32 would seem to be very disk intensive rather than cpu intensive, so the idle wattages would play more of a role here. Does that sound reasonable?

I don't think iTunes is much of a load in any case, is it?

Did you note how much each CPU was taxed during the tests?

Also for Hans007 - Yes with the 250 you're getting way more processor power all the time whether you use it or not.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=96&p2=36

Now maybe if you undervolted and underclocked the 250 you would get a clone of the 4850e. But what would that prove?

Here's an expanded comparison of the AMD 250 vs. the Intel E7200

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=96&p2=62

Who wins? Are you kidding? They swap who wins every other test.

Thanks
Aris

frostedflakes
Posts: 1608
Joined: Tue Jan 04, 2005 4:02 pm
Location: United States

Post by frostedflakes » Thu Sep 17, 2009 8:23 pm

aristide1 wrote:
hans007 wrote:That said... idle power for the be-2400 was 40 watts. The 5050e can get down to 38-39watts on occasion.

The athlon II x2 250 is really disappointing. its idling at 49-50 watts. I mean the bios sees it correctly but maybe its not calibrated right? Its running at just about 1V and 800mhz at idle just like the 5050e, but its using up 11watts more at idle.

Orthos load it spikes to just over 105 watts. The 5050e never got over 91 watts.

Granted my inwin power supply is not super efficient, but the kill-a-watts is reporting 11watts higher idle, and 15 or so watts higher peaks.

Anyhow, i'm disappointed. very disappointed.
But isn't the whole question of efficiency also in respect to the amount of work done? You noted the spikes when loading Orthos, but did it load quicker? Was the spike of a shorter duration? If your pc is mostly idle then yes idle consumption is a high priority, but if the processor completes its work quicker then the power penalty may not be as big as your fear.

A similar situation when one Intel chip switched to a smaller technology (I think it was from 90 to 65nm). Yes all things being equal it should have been cooler and had lower power draw, but it contained a lot more transistors and they performed more functions, so the heat and power issues didn't change as much as expected. And after thinking about it, the results really are what one would expect.

I have no idea if the X2 250 is more powerful, I haven't seen enough stats yet to make such a comparison.
frostedflakes wrote:I'd still like to pick up an AMD quad eventually for various other reasons, though.
You own stock in the local utility company?
Good price to performance ratio, and I kind of like supporting the underdog. I don't understand how AMD can keep up with Intel's massive R&D budget, but somehow they manage to at least stay somewhat competitive, and in the end us consumers win (more CPU and motherboard choices, lower prices, etc.). ;)

As I mentioned earlier, I'm not overly impressed with the power consumption of AMD's 45nm CPUs compared to Intel's. But as Mike mentioned in the review, you're comparing a mature 45nm process from Intel to AMD's relatively young 45nm process. Hopefully future revisions of AMD's 45nm cores will do better in terms of power consumption. Of course, by then Intel will be shipping even lower power 32nm processors. Poor AMD just can't keep up. :(

aristide1
*Lifetime Patron*
Posts: 4284
Joined: Fri Apr 04, 2003 6:21 pm
Location: Undisclosed but sober in US

Post by aristide1 » Fri Sep 25, 2009 4:18 pm

Here's a really interesting and telling comparison. The X2 250 versus the X2 6000+. Both are dual core, both are 3 GHz, and both have 2MB L2 cache, and yet the 250 is the clear winner, especially in the multi-threaded benchmarks.

http://www.anandtech.com/bench/default.aspx?p=96&p2=28

Post Reply