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AMD's A1100 is supposed to be "around 2.5x faster than AMD’s current low-power Jaguar-based server chip (the Opteron X2150), while maintaining the same TDP."[1]

by otoburb 12y ago

AMD's A1100 is supposed to be "around 2.5x faster than AMD’s current low-power Jaguar-based server chip (the Opteron X2150), while maintaining the same TDP."[1] The X2150 seems to operate within 11-25W.[2] On paper, this sounds like a thermal envelope that could still work within a 12.5" laptop like the venerable X220, although noted that the A1100 doesn't actually come with on-board video. Also, the A1100 dev kits seems to be currently packaged only for mini-ATX. Will all this actually somehow fit in an X220 chassis? [1] http://www.extremetech.com/computing/175583-amd-unveils-its-first-arm-based-cpu-the-64-bit-8-core-opteron-a1100 http://www.extremetech.com/computing/175583-amd-unveils-its-... [2] http://www.amd.com/Documents/Kyoto2150_QRG.pdf http://www.amd.com/Documents/Kyoto2150_QRG.pdf

ansible 12y ago
The X2150 seems to operate within 11-25W. That's much higher than some x86 based chipsets. Some of new Intel's Core-M Broadwell mobile chips are supposed to come in a 4.5W TDP. [1] But 11W is in range of some other older laptops. These guys may be better off targeting a gaming laptop based on an i7 to ensure adequate cooling for a server-grade processor in a laptop form factor. [1] http://www.extremetech.com/computing/189373-intel-details-core-m-speed-performance-and-tdp-at-14nm-intel-finally-goes-fanless http://www.extremetech.com/computing/189373-intel-details-co...
- higherpurpose 12y ago
  And it's mostly bullshit. Those laptops will either overheat, if the OEMs trust Intel with the "4.5W TDP" claim, or will be much lower performance, or they will actually have a higher TDP. http://www.extremetech.com/computing/192893-the-first-core-m-laptop-paints-a-depressing-mediocre-picture-for-intels-broadwell http://www.extremetech.com/computing/192893-the-first-core-m... Also people need to discern between actual reviews and "we've just copied all the info from Intel's PR" reviews. My link points to an actual review, yours to the latter. Also this: "the Yoga 3 Pro allows for bursts of up to -- 12W total system consumption --- however"
  - DanBC 12y ago
    Extremetech are shit. That "review" appears to be written by someone who doesn't have the actual product - it's just a compilation of other reviews.
  - andor 12y ago
    Also see this "first impressions" review: http://www.notebookcheck.net/First-Impressions-Lenovo-Yoga-3-Pro-in-Review.129643.0.html http://www.notebookcheck.net/First-Impressions-Lenovo-Yoga-3... 3.7W to 10.7W power usage when idle, and about 20W under load, depending on display brightness. So the SoC seems to use at least ~10W under load. Edit: I guess I have to retract my statement. The 15W TDP Haswell Macbooks also require >30W under load in their tests. Since power is measured externally, losses from various components add up: conversion losses in the power adapter and voltage converters, simultaneously charging the battery while emptying it, ...
exDM69 12y ago
Yes, this particular choice of hardware sounds strange to me too, this CPU is intended for low power servers, isn't it? There are tons of ARM system on chips in 1..5W power envelope and have built-in video, audio and USB. Also sentences like "Hardware choices will opt for longer battery life rather than 3D graphics performance" confuse me. The chips that have high 3D performance also usually have very low power consumption. Albeit in this case it will be problematic to find any kind external graphics chip, I assume the CPU has a PCI-e bus and they will have to pick a discrete PC laptop GPU. There's a further problem with ARM chips. Unlike x86, where there's some kind of a standard for peripherals and software (ie. the PC "standard"), all ARM SoCs have very diverse configurations. There's no standard pin layouts, no standard "chipsets", no standard BIOS or bootloaders. All IRQs are different, memory maps vary, and standards like ACPI for power management, etc do not really exist. I really wish that there were ARM-based low power laptops with as much open source firmware/drivers/kernel as possible, but unfortunately, this project does not seem very realistic to me. I hope that future ARM-based devices will have a better ecosystem and standards for building a complete computer around the CPU without being married to the software and hardware of the particular SoC vendor. disclosure: I work for an ARM SoC manufacturer
- 4ad 12y ago
  > There are tons of ARM system on chips in 1..5W power envelope and have built-in video, audio and USB. This is ARM64, not ARM! There are no ARM64 SoCs in 1..5W power envelope that have built-in video, audio and USB.
  - exDM69 12y ago
    Yes, there are. Although not many yet. I've been involved in building one that currently ships. ARM64 (ie. aarch64) is not that different from 32 bit ARM.
    - 4ad 12y ago
      And I've been involved in writing ARM64 compilers and ARM64 kernels. Saying ARM64 is not so different than 32-bit ARM is understatement of the year.

by otoburb 12y ago

ansible 12y ago

The X2150 seems to operate within 11-25W. That's much higher than some x86 based chipsets. Some of new Intel's Core-M Broadwell mobile chips are supposed to come in a 4.5W TDP. [1] But 11W is in range of some other older laptops. These guys may be better off targeting a gaming laptop based on an i7 to ensure adequate cooling for a server-grade processor in a laptop form factor. [1] http://www.extremetech.com/computing/189373-intel-details-core-m-speed-performance-and-tdp-at-14nm-intel-finally-goes-fanless http://www.extremetech.com/computing/189373-intel-details-co...

higherpurpose 12y ago
And it's mostly bullshit. Those laptops will either overheat, if the OEMs trust Intel with the "4.5W TDP" claim, or will be much lower performance, or they will actually have a higher TDP. http://www.extremetech.com/computing/192893-the-first-core-m-laptop-paints-a-depressing-mediocre-picture-for-intels-broadwell http://www.extremetech.com/computing/192893-the-first-core-m... Also people need to discern between actual reviews and "we've just copied all the info from Intel's PR" reviews. My link points to an actual review, yours to the latter. Also this: "the Yoga 3 Pro allows for bursts of up to -- 12W total system consumption --- however"
- DanBC 12y ago
  Extremetech are shit. That "review" appears to be written by someone who doesn't have the actual product - it's just a compilation of other reviews.
- andor 12y ago
  Also see this "first impressions" review: http://www.notebookcheck.net/First-Impressions-Lenovo-Yoga-3-Pro-in-Review.129643.0.html http://www.notebookcheck.net/First-Impressions-Lenovo-Yoga-3... 3.7W to 10.7W power usage when idle, and about 20W under load, depending on display brightness. So the SoC seems to use at least ~10W under load. Edit: I guess I have to retract my statement. The 15W TDP Haswell Macbooks also require >30W under load in their tests. Since power is measured externally, losses from various components add up: conversion losses in the power adapter and voltage converters, simultaneously charging the battery while emptying it, ...

exDM69 12y ago

Yes, this particular choice of hardware sounds strange to me too, this CPU is intended for low power servers, isn't it? There are tons of ARM system on chips in 1..5W power envelope and have built-in video, audio and USB. Also sentences like "Hardware choices will opt for longer battery life rather than 3D graphics performance" confuse me. The chips that have high 3D performance also usually have very low power consumption. Albeit in this case it will be problematic to find any kind external graphics chip, I assume the CPU has a PCI-e bus and they will have to pick a discrete PC laptop GPU. There's a further problem with ARM chips. Unlike x86, where there's some kind of a standard for peripherals and software (ie. the PC "standard"), all ARM SoCs have very diverse configurations. There's no standard pin layouts, no standard "chipsets", no standard BIOS or bootloaders. All IRQs are different, memory maps vary, and standards like ACPI for power management, etc do not really exist. I really wish that there were ARM-based low power laptops with as much open source firmware/drivers/kernel as possible, but unfortunately, this project does not seem very realistic to me. I hope that future ARM-based devices will have a better ecosystem and standards for building a complete computer around the CPU without being married to the software and hardware of the particular SoC vendor. disclosure: I work for an ARM SoC manufacturer

4ad 12y ago
> There are tons of ARM system on chips in 1..5W power envelope and have built-in video, audio and USB. This is ARM64, not ARM! There are no ARM64 SoCs in 1..5W power envelope that have built-in video, audio and USB.
- exDM69 12y ago
  Yes, there are. Although not many yet. I've been involved in building one that currently ships. ARM64 (ie. aarch64) is not that different from 32 bit ARM.
  - 4ad 12y ago
    And I've been involved in writing ARM64 compilers and ARM64 kernels. Saying ARM64 is not so different than 32-bit ARM is understatement of the year.