Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[wbmw]

Re: Turion 64 does use a different type of transistors too (i.e. previously unavailable lower power transistors that will not be used to the same extent in high performance K8 cpu's) as must be reasonably evident from those slides. It's hence a different cpu (die is different; functions are the same).

I don't believe AMD has the resources to staff layout teams to update the layouts of all their different brands each time they do a stepping or process change. I think Turion shares the same layout - and thus the same transistors - as E-step Opteron and Athlon 64 parts, and that they achieve their lower TDP numbers by virtue of lower frequency and voltage, as well as leakage binning from the manufacturing lots. The tradeoffs to this approach make more business sense to me than your alternative, which requires more staffing, more overhead, more recurring costs, etc. Then again, in the absence of actual data, I'll leave you to hold to your own opinion.