AMD's Phenom II X4 965 BE C3 Revision
For one or the other reason, AMD's current desktop flagship CPU, that is the Deneb core-based Phenom II X4 965 Black Edition has had some power issues. Whereas every other AMD processor is rated at or below 125W TDP, the '965 Black Edition with its unlocked multipliers for core and North Bridge has been rated at 140W, enough to raise more than one eyebrow in the evermore energy conscious world. From a misconceptual point of view, the biggest issue is that TDP does not mean that the processor will actually draw that much power, rather the TDP acronym has undergone so many permutations that it is no longer really clear what it stands for. To sync everybody back to the same page, it is the thermal design power, that is the power requirement that has to be met by the voltage regulator module and the heatsink in order to warrant save operation of the CPU under any and all conditions - as long as they are reasonable.
With the samples we had in our test labs, we never got even close to the 140W, in fact, we struggled to hit the 110W benchmark even if power was measured before the VRM which, given an efficacy in the order of 75-80% translates into maximum CPU power in the area of some 90W. It is self-understood that there have to be margins, especially when dealing with Taiwanese or Chinese motherboard manufacturers, at the same time, that 140W number has made the rounds and not helped AMD's reputation for power efficiency.
Reason enough to introduce a new revision of the Phenom II with a few small but nonetheless important differences under the metal layers .....
Originally Posted by informal
Actually there is NDA in place,until 4th of November.
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