Intel Corp (INTC)

[alan81]

There is a big depends...
the "hypotehtical" power depends on so many things it is hard to generalize. In one slide that is going around AMD pegged the power for an Intel northbridge at 22W, and then listed an opteron at 30W... does that mean the opteron core really runs at just 8W, yet it takes them 22W to do the basic northbridge functionality? I really doubt it.
Intel has mentioned the northbridge in a mobile system runs between 1W and 3W depending on functionality and usage models. Most northbridge chips are manufactured on generation N-1 technology while the processors, hence the integrated AMD northbridge is manufactured on the leading edge process. As a result of this, the integrated northbridge should be substantially lower power than the discrete version.

Another factor that was discussed is bus power. There is usually lots of "specmanship" regarding this number, for good reasons. The DRAM controller bus power will be a strong function of the load, which varies with the amount and type of RAM installed in the system.

Just as some circuits on the dual core opteron are shared, some circuits on the smithfield will be shared. I really doubt when all is said and done there will be much difference between the two when you look at the power multiplier in going to dual core. On the other hand, opteron does appear to have significant power margin when operated on 90nm with some of the newer steppings. This should result in relatively lower power for the dual core design.

In terms of the smithfield 130W power impact on final system desirability, I doubt there will be much effect. Gateway already has a BTX prescott system out that is SIGNIFICANTLY quieter than most systems out there. The Sony VAIO systems are already using water cooling, which is virtually silent. With the inclusion of halt states and speedstep, typical system power usage is going to depend much more on the system components beyond the CPU. When a multithreaded application needs lots of compute cycles, power will be high, but performance will also be high. When single threaded application are just chugging along, power should be low, matching the work load.

I see this as a huge win for the consumer. I do think Intel has adequate capacity to supply the demand for such a product, while AMD can not make much of an impact (except for server space) until they have fab 36 up and running.
--Alan