Which CPU need less power (=produces less heat): AMD Athlon Mobile, AMD x64 or Intel "Core Duo" ?

[Peter Smirnov]

I am planning to buy a new mothorboard and CPU. One of the most important things is
that the new CPU need only less power and hence produces less heat.

Which of the three CPUs:

- AMD Athlon XP Barton Mobile
- AMD x64
- Intel Core Duo

is recommended when looking onto this criteria ?

How much speed difference is netween the two (when the effective Ghz value is the same)?

Peter

 

[General Schvantzkoph]

I am planning to buy a new mothorboard and CPU. One of the most important things is
that the new CPU need only less power and hence produces less heat.

Which of the three CPUs:

- AMD Athlon XP Barton Mobile
- AMD x64
- Intel Core Duo

is recommended when looking onto this criteria ?

How much speed difference is netween the two (when the effective Ghz value is the same)?

Peter

The Core2 Duos are about 25% faster on a clock for clock basis.

 

[Neil Barras]

From what I've read about the Barton, it has a TDP of 45Watts and its temps
are around the 30's. My colleague has an Intel C2D E6300 (1.86GHz) clocked
to 2.8GHz (Per core) and has said he's yet to see it go over 35C, and whilst
its TDP is 65W, I'd say it's an easy guess of which to go for if it's
temperatures that are your main concern as with the C2D, you'll get bucket
loads more performance for the temps being with 1 or 2 degrees of the
Barton.

As for the equal effective clock speed question, if the C2D e6300 was to be
overclocked to 2.5GHz per core (Seeing as AMD say their Barton running at
1.86GHz is effective to an Intel chip at 2.5GHz), due to the way the C2D
chip has been designed, and the fact that there would be two cores at
2.5GHz, the E6300 will not only blow the Barton out of the water, but also
right off the face of the Earth.

Why have I not mentioned the Athlon x64? Well, the Barton will be cooler,
and the C2D would be faster and cooler than the x64, so if it had to be
between any, it would be between the Mboile and the C2D. But honestly - The
C2D wins outright.

HTH,

Neil

PS. If you go with a C2D, my colleague has it in an Antec Solo case with an
Intel D965 board with the bios controlling fan speeds (Stock cooler and 1
120mm exhaust case fan) and it's the quietest PC I've ever known that has
all moving parts. It even has a 10,000RPM Hard Drive!

 

[Tony Hill]

I am planning to buy a new mothorboard and CPU. One of the most important things is
that the new CPU need only less power and hence produces less heat.

Which of the three CPUs:

- AMD Athlon XP Barton Mobile

These chips are available with 3 different power levels, 35W, 45W and
72W. The 35W models had reasonably good power consumption, but
nothing too great.

- AMD x64

AMD never produced a chip by that name. They did produce a variety of
Athlon64 processors, for both desktop and mobile applications, as well
as some Athlon64 X2 chips, available as regular chips, "Energy
Efficient" chips (65W rating) and "Small Form Factor" chips (35W
rating).

- Intel Core Duo

The Intel Core Duo chips were mobile chips and are almost certainly
going to be the lowest power consuming chips of the bunch. They are
all rated for 31W max, they have pretty good dynamic power saving
features and are generally good performers. Of course, they're also
the most expensive chip you listed! www.newegg.com lists their
cheapest Core Duo chip at $197 for the T2300E and going up to $424 for
the T2600.

Note that these are mobile chips and you can't just drop them into any
old motherboard. Only a limited number of motherboards support Intel
Core Duo chips, Newegg only has one listed (Asus N4L-VM).

is recommended when looking onto this criteria ?

How much speed difference is netween the two (when the effective Ghz value is the same)?

Umm.. How much speed difference between which two? You listed three
chips!

Of those three the Core Duo would be the fastest, clock for clock,
with the Athlon64 X2 being not far behind. The AthlonXP is quite
dated these days and quite a bit slower than either of the first two.

 

[Peter D.]

I am planning to buy a new mothorboard and CPU. One of the most important
things is that the new CPU need only less power and hence produces less
heat.

Which of the three CPUs:

- AMD Athlon XP Barton Mobile
- AMD x64
- Intel Core Duo

is recommended when looking onto this criteria ?

How much speed difference is netween the two (when the effective Ghz value
is the same)?

Peter

When you are comparing AMD processors this page will help;
http://www.amdcompare.com/us-en/desktop/Default.aspx

Their ratings vary between 35W and 125W. Work your way up through
the list until you find a processor that is fast enough for you.
If you are desperate, you can also under Volt and under clock things.

 

[Anton Ertl]

I am planning to buy a new mothorboard and CPU. One of the most important things is
that the new CPU need only less power and hence produces less heat.

Which of the three CPUs:

- AMD Athlon XP Barton Mobile
- AMD x64
- Intel Core Duo

is recommended when looking onto this criteria ?

With that as your main criterion, you should also look at the EPIA
boards from VIA. Quite slow, but really low power consumption. A big
advantage here is that the other components on the board are designed
for the low-consumption CPU, unlike in a usual desktop board.

If you want more speed, something like the Athlon 64 3500+ EE SFF
might be of interest to you. And if you want dual-core, the Core 2
Duo consumes relatively little when loaded.

- anton

 

[tcsenter]

I am planning to buy a new mothorboard and CPU. One of the most important things is
that the new CPU need only less power and hence produces less heat.

Which of the three CPUs:

- AMD Athlon XP Barton Mobile
- AMD x64
- Intel Core Duo

There are mobile AMD64 and Intel processors to be considered in
addition to Mobile Athlon XP-M. Desktop boards exist that will accept
mobile AMD64 (Turion) and and Pentium M (Merom) processors.

Of the three options you listed, Athlon XP-M Mobile Barton would be
more efficient in absolute terms with 35W (low power) and 45W
(mainstream) TDP parts available, at the expense of processing power,
of course. There are probably better performance-per-watt choices
available but with higher absolute TDP.

Regards,

Tim

 

[tcsenter]

Of the three options you listed, Athlon XP-M Mobile Barton would be
more efficient in absolute terms with 35W (low power) and 45W
(mainstream) TDP parts available, at the expense of processing power,
of course.

Correction: I mistakenly read 'Intel Core Duo' (mobile) in your list
as 'Intel Core 2 Duo' (desktop).

Intel Core Duo is comparable to the 35W XP-M in absolute TDP while
having better performance.

Regards,

Tim

 

[llothar]

- AMD Athlon XP Barton Mobile
- AMD x64
- Intel Core Duo

My first generation Intel Mac uses the mobile Core Duo (not Core 2 Duo)
and it is very good in power comsumation. I think the best trade off.

Old Barton Mobiles really sucks and don't have performance. I thought
about the AMD Genode previously but reports very really bad about
performance and it still uses 20 Watt.