Athlon core, why so small? + surface area, - temp

They didn't cover the core with a heat spreader like Intel does. I don't know why, cause the k6-2 had one, but I think it's better for cooling because the heat sink is right against the core.

Aklein

It's raining outside, and my lawn has grown a foot overnight!

The problem with increasing the size of the core is this.

Less CPUs per wafer are created thus reducing production and increasing cost.

Hitting the higher clock speeds would not be possible if the CPU was twice as large. CPU do not need “room to breathe” They need the electrons to travel as short a distance as possible. Every die shrink = faster clock speed.

Who cares how hot they run. Athlons are rated to 90c. Temp is a nonissue.


Thx & Cya


<font color=green>I may go to <font color=red>hell</font color=red> but at least I won't get lonely</font color=green>

Listen to LowlyPawn, and also consider that silicon is a semiconductor, if they were to, say, split the processor and then interconnect the parts, the interconnects would produce heat as well.

Cast not thine pearls before the swine

more distance to travel=more resistance. more resistance = more power consumed. That = heat. Smaller cores are actually cooler than larger ones.

Actually another consideration is that the core is the smallest it can be. The current P4 does not have all the bits it should have because it would not fit. Once the cpu is built on .13 micron technology rather than .18 it will all fit again.

Generally, the smaller a unit, the less power consumed.

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OK I understand now, thanks  

Beer is the devil's piss.

PLUS

It's not like AMD's processors slag off..
They work hard! and perform hard!

--call it what you wish, with this machine I can make mercury flow in 3 directions at once--

<<<Who cares how hot they run. Athlons are rated to 90c. Temp is a nonissue.>>>

have you ever seen a athlon run at 90c?

Have you? I've never seen an Athlon go over 55, and I've built several.

Kelledin

"/join #hackerz. See the Web. DoS interesting people."

Yeah my tbird was running at 59 C full load

"He who laughs last doesn't get the joke"

Exactly! Mine says 64 but probe is 10 degrees high. If your computer runs stable who cares how hot the CPU is. I could lower my temps with my loud a$$ delta but it’s stable with a quieter fan. If my CPU burns out in 5 years instead of 10 who cares. It will be so out dated by then.

Thx & Cya

<font color=green>I may go to <font color=red>hell</font color=red> but at least I won't get lonely</font color=green>