Athlon 64 90nm vs Athlon 64 130nm
In early September, AMD stealthily released the first Athlon 64 based on the « Winchester » core and with a 90 nm fabrication process. Like the precedent 130 nm « Newcastle », these processors are equipped with 512 KB of cache L2. Thanks to the reduced fabrication process, die size was reduced from 150 to 83 mm², making it possible to produce 75% more processors out of the same wafer.
This production cost reduction is significant even if the R&D and new equipments need to be amortized. Also, processors based on a new fabrication process will initially have lower performances (plus the number of malfunctioning products), but in the long run, reducing costs in the fabrication process is always favorable.
Officially, a Newcastle clocked at 2.2 Ghz, needs 1.5 V and consumes up to 89 watts, whereas a Winchester needs 1.4V and consumes a maximum of 67 Watts.
Officially, there are three Athlon 64s based on the Socket 939 and with a 90nm fabrication process:
- 3000+ : ADA3000DIK4BI
- 3200+ : ADA3200DIK4BI
- 3500+ : ADA3500DIK4BI
The 3500+ also exists in a 130 nm version, called the « ADA3500DEP4AW ». In practice, this is how a CPU-Z recognizes an Athlon 64 3500+ 90nm:
What are the differences in practice? We start with three measurements:
First, was the electrical consumption of the whole configuration (motherboard, 2x512 Mb of memory, 9600 Pro, 1 Raptor). Measurements were made directly from the electrical plug. Because of the efficiency of the power supply, real electrical consumption is 70 to 80% less than the result. We also noted the temperature with an internal processor probe via the motherboard after 30 min of Prime95, and finally, that given by an external probe placed on the side of the socket. Here are the results:
It’s obvious that the configuration based on the AMD Athlon 64 3500+ with a 90 nm fabrication process consumes 21 Watts less than the same 130 nm configuration. For temperature, we measured two different contradictory values. Internal temperature is slightly superior while it’s slightly inferior with our external probe.
In fact, the explanation is relatively simple. Knowing that the Athlon 64 has a higher electrical consumption the energy dissipation is made on a smaller surface because of the smaller die. The die temperature is stable, but the processor emanates less heat.
What about Overclocking? It’s difficult to judge from only one processor, but we conducted a test with a Heatpipe air cooling system (provided by AMD with the Athlon 64 4000+ / FX-55) and an electrical input 10% superior to the initial 1.4V (1.54V). In practice, we reached a stable 2.55 GHz. However, with the same fan and electrical tension (1.65V) of +10% with the 130 nm version we reached 2600 MHz. With our processor, the advantage goes to the 130 nm version, even if we hope this is only a temporary situation.
The last part is a face-off between the Athlon 64 90 nm and 130nm. Are performances equivalent between the two die? Here are the results obtained with our tests, expressed in seconds, except for the last three, which are in frames per second.
Results are quite surprising as performances vary depending on the version. Most of the time, the 90 nm is fastest with performance differences of 0.1% to 1.9%. There is, however, one exception. During video encoding to DiVX format via VirtualDubMod, the 3500+ 90nm was, in the end, clearly slower than the previous version. We are positive about the accuracy of these figures, and conducted the test several times to be sure. We don’t have an explanation for these results.
The test
To measure performances we used the following platforms:
- Socket A : ASUSTeK A7N8X-E Deluxe (nForce2 400 Ultra)
- Socket 754 : MSI K8N Neo (nForce3 250)
- Socket 939 : MSI K8N Neo2 (nForce3 250 Ultra)
Except for the motherboard, the other components are identical :
- 2x512 Mb DDR-400 Corsair in 2-2-2-8
- NVIDIA GeForce 6800 GT AGP
- Western Digital WD800BB
- Western Digital Raptor WD740GD
- Windows XP SP1 French
The results of the following processors are include in this test :
- 2800+ S754 : 1800 MHz, 512 Kb of L2, 1 channel DDR, 130nm
- 3000+ S754 : 2000 MHz, 512 Kb of L2, 1 channel DDR, 130nm
- 3200+ S754 : 2200 MHz, 512 Kb of L2, 1 channel DDR, 130nm
- 3400+ S754 : 2400 MHz, 512 Kb of L2, 1 channel DDR, 130nm
- 3700+ S754 : 2400 MHz, 1024 Kb of L2, 1 channel DDR, 130nm
- 3000+ S939 : 1800 MHz, 512 Kb of L2, 2 channels DDR, 90nm
- 3200+ S939 : 2000 MHz, 512 Kb of L2, 2 channels DDR, 90nm
- 3500+ S939 : 2200 MHz, 512 Kb of L2, 2 channels DDR, 90nm
- 3500+ S939 : 2200 MHz, 512 Kb of L2, 2 channels DDR, 130nm
- 3800+ S939 : 2400 MHz, 512 Kb of L2, 2 channels DDR, 130nm
- 4000+ S939 : 2400 MHz, 1024 Kb of L2, 2 channels DDR, 130nm
- FX-55 S939 : 2600 MHz, 1024 Kb of L2, 2 channels DDR, 130nm
For comparison, we also added Athlon XP 2800+, 3200+, Sempron 2800+ and 3100+ results. We remind you that last processor is actually based on the Athlon 64 but without 64 bit instructions and with only 256 KB of cache L2. For the Socket 754 it was clocked at 1.8 GHz.
