Quote Originally Posted by savantu View Post
Both Intel and AMD apply the same principles in measuring TDP, there's no measurable difference between the 2.
The TDP for both parties is defined as " max power while running power hungry commercial apps ". The cooling solutions are designed to handle this.

CPUs from both companies can exceed this TDP in special cases like a thermal virus. Typically TDP is reached while running Linpack, everything else drops below it.

So how exactly is Intel's TDP misleading as you imply ?

What is truly misleading is ACP; a pure marketing invention that nobody who actually uses the systems cares about. It is basically a weighted mean given that CPUs also spend time idle. Which is pure bull because :
-cooling designers need to target TDP, cannot assume idle time in utilization
-users need to assign both power and cooling based on TDP, since you need to cover the peak
It is far more complicated than you think. Our TDP is max power, which is the most power that the processor can consume. For Intel, this is "max power", not TDP.

Real power at the wall is what will matter. For example:

Xeon X5570:
TDP: 95W
Max power: 155W (sustained)
Highest power 197 (I would generally ignore this number, but it is an interesting data point)
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/Xeon/I...602X5570).html
Power at the wall @100% utilization: ~254W

Opteron 2435:
ACP: 75W
TDP: 115W (this is max power)
http://www.cpu-world.com/CPUs/K10/AM...S6DGNWOF).html
Power at the wall: ~258W

Power at the wall for both (I just grabbed the first result, thus the ~):
http://www.spec.org/power_ssj2008/re...r_ssj2008.html

So, what you really see, is at the wall, you have to plan for about the same amount of power for both. So you can't compare TDP only (95W to 115W).

Nor, can you compare our ACP to their TDP because again there is a 20W delta.

What you really need to look at is the power at the wall, and you can see that they are both about the same.

That is a pure power discussion. You could layer in performance to try to argue it one way or the other, but you have to be really careful in doing that as both products are going to rev in 2 weeks. Unless you know where both are going to end up you might not want to put your stake in the ground just yet. (also don't forget that this is a $989 part vs. a $1386 part)