Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[alan81]

One more try at thermal wording...
This is what I think you are saying... correct me if I am wrong.
You are saying that if you look up the case temperature in table 9 you can find the TDP of the CPU?
This is not strictly true. For this to be true, you also have to have an ambient temperature of 42C and a heat sink/fan combo that gives you the thermal resistance stated for that column. For instance, assume with a part specified for thermal profile A, which has a thermal resistance of .34 C/W.
We then go in and measure the case temperature and find that it is 51C. We look at 51C in table 9 and find TDP is 26.5W. Does this mean the CPU is dissipating 26.5W? No it does not. IFF we really have a .34C/w thermal solution and the ambient is 42C then we are dissipating 26.5W. However, if the ambient is 25C then we are really dissipating:
power=(Tcase-tambient)/thermal resistance
power=(51-25)/.34 = 106W!
Table 9 does NOT give the characteristics of the opteron CPU, but rather the characteristics of the thermal solution.
--Alan