heat signatures for this chip?

[behrad]

Hi all,
Do any of you gurus know the heat signature of these CPU chips?
I am in the midst of putting together my very first HTPC and one of the key issues that I would like to control is the fan noise. There is a fair bit of WAF involved in keeping this PC quiet as possible. Hence, I would like to know how much power and therefore how much heat this CPU choices will generate?
I did some searching and it looks like the AMD dual core 3600+ is rated at 65 Watts. This sounds very reasonable and would not take a lot of fan activity to keep cool however, I would feel that If I stepped up a few notches, it would make my HTPC more future proof.

This is why I'd like to know how hot the follwoing CPU are going to run under some load:

AMD Dual core 3800+
AMD Dual core 4600+
AMD Dual core 4800+

Intel Core Duo E4300
Intel Core Duo E6420
Intel Core Duo E6600

Kind regards....B

[Redwight]

My informant tells me that the core duo 6600 has the smaller heat output. Basically one of the guys at work was building a new gaming rig and his research suggested that the reason the 6600 is fast is the thin die layer used which equates to less heat. I'd suggest maybe Toms hardware or some similar sites probably got a comparison chart somewhere.

[behrad]

thanks Redwight,

I did try the C-net site for comparison charts for these CPUs before I posted but found nothing that fit the bill. Maybe I was not looking at the right places. I will try to visit the site you suggested today

Cheers,
B

[Lester_Burnham]

Hi,

From what I understand, all the processors in a series are essentially the same silicon die with a different multiplier or front side bus.
6700 - 5x533=2.66ghz
6600 - 4.5x533=2.4ghz
6400 - 4x533=2.13ghz
6300 - 3.5x533=1.86ghz

So, the higher the clock speed, you would think it would run slightly warmer.

To give you an idea how cool they run. A mate of mine overclocked his e6420 to 3.4ghz and it was running @ 26-30deg idle and when pushed very hard, went up to around 65deg. With normal using it would hover around 40deg.

Hope it helps,
Lester

[MSurge]

I believe that at the moment Intel have the edge in this regard however AMD do manufacture some "Energy Efficient" CPU's, so I think in the lower end of the AM2 chips (3500?) there is a CPU's down around 35W or something.

I have found very little on the AMD site but I found that using StaticIce.com.au (usually used for price searching) with searches along "AMD AM2 efficient" can turn up what is currently in the market place. These CPU's are nothing different to a standard chip, they have just selected those that happen to run cooler when tested at the end of production and packaged them as "energy efficient". Sometimes these also appear to be described as "low voltage".

I think the AMD v Intel is always pretty neck-and-neck and since the board I like is AMD then that's the way I'm looking at going but in the end I expect I'll be installing a minimum of an AMD AM2 dual core 4800 with a power rating of 65W. It seems that all these higher speed chips are rated at 65W which I figure isn't a big deal with a correctly chosen after-market fan. Certainly cooler and quieter than my current 939-3700 single core with a stock fan which hasn't proven to be an issue anyway.

[Astrotoy7]

Fact of the matter is, many of the AMD Athlon range still floating round are 90nm chips... The "EE" chips are 65nm versions of the 90nm athlon CPUS. The c2Ds are 65nm, and a supreme improvement, from juice guzzling POV that their 90nm netburst predecessors. Comparing the 65nm Athlon EEs to the 65nm C2Ds from an energy expenditure perspective is a real 'apples and oranges' scenario.

You really need to know that there is *no* conclusive data from anyone about contextual, overall energy efficiency over a long duration. You will find oodles of 'benchies' that will tell you about, idle and load relevant to certain tasks. The cinebench app gives some time-dependent correlations, but still, far from contextual, real life, long duration testing.

Search for the "AMD vs Intel' thread for some relevant discussion on this point.

If what you are really after is a low energy consuming rig, get a smallform, or one of those (pricey) hfx type cases that are entirely fanless. I know a few of the xpc barebones have been issued with energy compliant certification, which require them to consume 70% less energy and use recyclable materials. for more info see HERE

Into your case, make sure you use embedded graphics or a passive fanless vga card. That will further lower your energy expenditure.

As far as chip choice with reference to this issue - the jury is definitely out..... go with your what your wallet tells you. Each will perform spectacularly in an MCE rig.

astro