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LOSTCIRCUITS	SHORTCUTS: Dual Core vs HyperThreading Tech Specs Test Setup Memory Performance WorldBench5 3dsmax CineBench 2003 3D Gaming Power/Temperature Coefficient Power Hogs 3D Rendering Power DOOM3 3DMark2001SE 3DMark'05 Final Thoughts Give Us Some Feedback on this Review
AMD Athlon64 X2 "Toledo" Dual Core on Single Die
(Review by MS May 9, 2005)

AMD ATHLON 64 X2 PROCESSOR TECH SPECS AND PRICING

Each die contains two complete Diego or Venice cores linked through the "Direct Connect" interface

As shown above, the flagship is running at 2.4GHz and features a 1 MB cache per core for a total of 2 MB L2 on the entire die. Keep in mind that the original ClawHammer die had 105 million transistors, meaning that two entire cores on the same die will, at a minimum double the transistor count. Furthermore, the “Direct Connect” interface between the two cores needs to be present, and that, in conjunction with the added SSE3 instructions adds up to the 233.2 million transistors we see in the X2 4800+ and 4400+ cores. The pricing is somewhat high but appears still adequate considering the die size and overall performance that we'll show in more detail in the following.

Dual core processors will run on current Socket 939 mainboards, however, a BIOS update will be required for correct recognition of the second core. AMD also released CPU drivers for the dual core that require Windows XP ServicePack2 in order to allow installation.

Extra caches mean extra power, double cores mean even more power yet, and this is where one focus of this report is going to be. As a short preamble, dual cores do not necessarily double the power under load, that only holds trued for situations where both cores are 100% utilized. In single applications, the estimated power will be the idle power that is roughly 2 x the power of a single core of the same design plus the power delta of one core between idle and load. Arguably, there will be a slight overhead on top of that. To make a long story short, we looked into every aspect of benchmarks and power that we could squeeze into the two days that we had for testing. Note that the ICCmax, that is the maximum current going through the CPU is 80A, which at 1.36V, translates into 108.8W. This means that under catastrophic conditions, the CPU may draw the mentioned power, however, for parctical purposes, this number is irrelevant other than serving as guidelines for the manufacturers as to how much the CPU VRM has to be able to deliver in order to qualify for X2 usage.

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