Friday, July 10th 2009
AMD Athlon II X4 ''Propus'' 600 Quad-Core Chips Include 45W Models
AMD's 45 nm desktop processor lineup involves three basic core designs codenamed Deneb, Propus, and Regor. Deneb is the flagship design, which features four cores, two 64-bit DDR2(/DDR3) memory controllers, and a large L3 cache of 6 MB. When one core is disabled, the Phenom II X3 "Heka" processor is yielded, when 2 MB out of the 6 MB of L3 cache is disabled, Phenom II X4 800 series processor is yielded, and when two out of four cores are disabled, Phenom II X2 500 is yielded. To cater to sub-$100 market better, AMD needed to cut the manufacturing costs while maintaining a reasonable level of performance, and substantially low TDP ratings. Hence the company designed the Propus quad-core chip, which physically lacks an L3 cache. The lack of L3 cache chops the transistor load on the die, as well as its TDP. AMD further plans to yield a triple-core Athlon II X3 "Rana" processor using this die, by disabling one of the four cores. The third die design, Regor, features no more than two cores physically, and lacks an L3 cache. As an added bonus, the L2 cache per core is doubled to 1024 KB (2 MB total L2 cache), and HyperTransport multiplier set high (10 x 200 MHz).
Some of AMD's first products based on Propus have surfaced thanks to a leak from a motherboard manufacturer. It reveals an initial lineup of four models, including two low-wattage ones. Enter Athlon II X4 600e, 605e, 620, and 630. These chips' clock speeds range between 2.20 and 2.80 GHz. Unlike with Regor, each core on the Propus keeps 512 KB of L2 cache, which makes it 2 MB of total L2 cache. The most surprising part of the specs is the TDP of the low-wattage chips, with the 2.20 GHz 600e and 2.40 GHz 605e, is 45W. In comparison, it took a clock-speed of 2.00 GHz for the previous-generation 65 nm Agena core to reach a TDP rating of 65W. The 2.60 GHz 620 and 2.80 GHz 630 have TDP ratings of 65W. We reckon these chips to hit shelves in this quarter. Below is a die-shot of the Propus core. It bears quite some resemblance to its 65 nm ancestor.
Source:
Hardware-Infos
Some of AMD's first products based on Propus have surfaced thanks to a leak from a motherboard manufacturer. It reveals an initial lineup of four models, including two low-wattage ones. Enter Athlon II X4 600e, 605e, 620, and 630. These chips' clock speeds range between 2.20 and 2.80 GHz. Unlike with Regor, each core on the Propus keeps 512 KB of L2 cache, which makes it 2 MB of total L2 cache. The most surprising part of the specs is the TDP of the low-wattage chips, with the 2.20 GHz 600e and 2.40 GHz 605e, is 45W. In comparison, it took a clock-speed of 2.00 GHz for the previous-generation 65 nm Agena core to reach a TDP rating of 65W. The 2.60 GHz 620 and 2.80 GHz 630 have TDP ratings of 65W. We reckon these chips to hit shelves in this quarter. Below is a die-shot of the Propus core. It bears quite some resemblance to its 65 nm ancestor.
19 Comments on AMD Athlon II X4 ''Propus'' 600 Quad-Core Chips Include 45W Models
0MB L3 cache shows either:
1./ OMG, they have fab problems down at the shop, and L3 yield is a disaster. Oh dear. Or,
2./ Point 1 isnt true, but they underclocked the CPU and cut all the L3 cache out so that they could claim "TDP parity" at 45W with Intel. Had they left 2MB L3 cache in or kept clocks high they couldnt get under the TDP envelop and would have been at 55W or higher.
I bet the Intel 45W CPUs walk all over 0MB L3 AMDs. :shadedshu
Remember, its still being blocked by the EEPROM, not cut.
Aha- they gated the L3... so yeah... it may be unlockable...
Silent, much more power efficient and a still a cheap build.
As in, for the first few hundred/thousand they would just gate the L3... and then transition to removing the L3 all-together. Gating it would remove its power source... making it "not there"...
Alot like the PII 920/940. They use 20W less on avg because of the DDR3 controller not being present but its still "there".
This will be interesting to see when these do come out, id like to see the Athlon X4's benchmarks as i think these will perform well, like the Athlon 250 it performs great almost as good as a E8400 not bad for alot less Cache size.
I just wish AMD would put a lot of L2 cache on there chips, worked for intel....but it is alot more expensive to do so, shame :ohwell:
they are clocking pretty close to each thats mine on DICE and most e5200's clock the same on DICE there is an occasional freak e5200 that does like 5.4ghz on DICE but those are rare and are actually cut down E8X00 chips