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AMD's Athlon II and Phenom II Refresh (LostCircuits) |
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| Tue, October 19 2010 | 12:00PM | PermaLink |
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Speed steps are what they are, namely evolutionary progress towards higher performance, and in most cases based on some maturation of the manufacturing process. There is nothing new and exciting about them but they show the results of successful analysis and screening of processors and comparing the results with the log of the process variability and then going back and implementing those variations as features. It is all work and more work that results in this kind of progress, the days where somebody had the magic silicon mixture that worked off the bat are pretty much over.
In the case of the ‘970 this kind of analysis / tweak really appears to have paid off, we were able to hit 4.0 GHz without any adjustments and 4.2 GHz stable at 1.55 V using nothing but an old dusty OCZ Vendetta II at slightly higher than ambient room temperature.
Reason enough to drool? Probably not but nice to know that the headroom is there, along with the slightly reduced power draw. Of course, the additional benefit is that the bottom of the CPU lineup can be culled and a new flagship can be added to the top. Prices stay roughly the same within the spread but by the end of the day, the consumer gets more for the money. And that’s essentially the take-home message.
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FULL STORY @
Archived from LOSTCIRCUITS
http://www.lostcircuits.com/mambo//index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=92&Itemid=42
CURRENT CPU / Processors News on PCSTATS
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06 / 18 / 2013 | 12:59AM
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