Replies to post #9833 on Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[Dan3]

Re: heat dissipation is a concern in server and especially in HPC segment

There's another issue that will probably start coming up.

Whenever there's significant extension to the power envelope, there tends to be a lag before the PS/Case infrastructure supports it very well. And during that lag period, a lot of marginal systems can get shipped. This bit the early Athlons, as whitebox shops (and cost conscious OEMS) put Athlons in cases that could barely handle them, and would start acting flaky if a second HD or other power drain were added or if the system were put in a poorly ventilated area.

Another issue is that a system that has to flow a lot of air to maintain cooling will also be flowing a lot of dust, and will be susceptible to overheating due to junk filling up parts of the box.

If prescott really is a 103/120 watt chip, we may begin seeing a lot of reliability issues with P4 systems, that won't really be P4 problems, but case/PS problems.

But, just as the early Athlons were blamed for these case failures, so will prescott be blamed.

[drjohn]

At current price levels, the energy bill for the power the CPU consumes over the lifetime is in the same ballpark of the pricetag of the CPU (assuming an office-system running 800 days in four years for eight hours.

You must have very expensive utilitiy rates or you buy your
CPU's for $20-$30, because that what the electricity costs
of running a 100 watt bulb eight hours/day X 800 days would
cost in my neck of the woods. Electricty costs in most
western ecomonies are laughable, its one of the reasons people
do not conserve.

unless the world is perceiving AMDs products as a clearly better choice at the point of sale.

Defintely not the case if you go by recent CPU sales.