AMD releases 1Ghz Geode with only 9watts of heat! *Update*

PorBleemo · Post by **PorBleemo** » Mon May 24, 2004 7:13 am

http://www.amd.com/us-en/ConnectivitySo ... 37,00.html

Geode™ NX1500 = 1Ghz, 1v, 6w
Geode™ NX1750 = 1.4Ghz, 1.25v?, 14w

128Kb L1 Cache
256Kb L2 Cache
266Mhz FSB
Socket 453 (Socket 462 compatible, probably removed voltage pins)
PowerNow! Support
MMX, SSE, 3DNow! Professional
.13micron fabbing

Looks like a Throughbred with many welcome changes. It still has the Athlon FPU unit, 9 pipelines, etc. Looks like the 1Ghz model won't peak 9w under load. (Woot!)

No more weak VIA processors for small PCs.

UPDATE: Price Info
Geode™ NX1500 = $65.00 est.
Geode™ NX1750 = $55.00 est.
Looks like a lot of people here would probably go with the NX1750.

wsc · Post by **wsc** » Mon May 24, 2004 8:54 am

Very nice! Great find

I wonder if its feasible to run the 14W version fanless... hmm...

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Mon May 24, 2004 11:32 am

Looks very interesting, but they seem to be pushing it towards imbedded applications, just like some are doing with the Banias/855 Intel CPU. We may never see affordable, available mobos with an AGP slot.

If this pans out, I'll be trying an AMD CPU for the first time in three years.

monkiman · Post by **monkiman** » Mon May 24, 2004 11:54 am

The technical spec says it's compatible with existing socket A and uses the same BIOS, chipsets etc as the mobile Athlons

vortex222 · Post by **vortex222** » Mon May 24, 2004 11:58 am

it looks very promising for my HTPC. the nforce2 igp is a great chipset for HTPC use and the athlon has alot more oooomph then the via c3's.. it would make a great layout.

the c3 is a decent platform for htpc use but it seems to lack when it really needs some grunt. mp3 compression is one of them. it makes a poor jukebox when u have to load 300 cds into it. took me a week to do. when i could do 60 cds on my own computer in 3 hours.

Post by **Ralf Hutter** » Mon May 24, 2004 11:59 am

monkiman wrote:The technical spec says it's compatible with existing socket A and uses the same BIOS, chipsets etc as the mobile Athlons

So does that mean that if you can source one of these CPU's you can use it on any compatible consumer mobo?

monkiman · Post by **monkiman** » Mon May 24, 2004 12:21 pm

Seems to be the implication - I'm reading the data book a little more closely - the 'technical specs' are anything but.

The only tough thing is the the voltage requirements are even lower than the average mobile from 1.0 to 1.25V

PorBleemo · Post by **PorBleemo** » Mon May 24, 2004 12:37 pm

monkiman wrote:Seems to be the implication - I'm reading the data book a little more closely - the 'technical specs' are anything but.

The only tough thing is the the voltage requirements are even lower than the average mobile from 1.0 to 1.25V

I couldn't find that. Is the 1.25v for the NX1750? Looks like some of the enthusiasts here will have to mod their motherboard, like AMD did for the testing.

Boomerang Rapido · Post by **Boomerang Rapido** » Mon May 24, 2004 12:37 pm

Not really sure what to make of the benchmark of the NX 1500 vs. 1 GHz Nehemiah here... http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content ... 500_lo.jpg

Think I need some interpretation help here

Which benchmarks are the real indicators on how this thing performs?

monkiman · Post by **monkiman** » Mon May 24, 2004 12:58 pm

PorBleemo wrote: I couldn't find that. Is the 1.25v for the NX1750? Looks like some of the enthusiasts here will have to mod their motherboard, like AMD did for the testing.

Page 33 of the data book

Table 7-2. AMD Geode™ NX 1750@14W Processor* Voltage and Frequency Combinations

Voltage 1.250V 1.200V 1.150V 1.100V 1.050V 1.000V3
Frequency 1400 MHz 1200 MHz 1133 MHz 1067 MHz 1000 MHz ≤900 MHz

Ducky · Post by **Ducky** » Mon May 24, 2004 2:59 pm

Boomerang Rapido wrote:Think I need some interpretation help here Which benchmarks are the real indicators on how this thing performs?

Looks like memory bandwidth is much higher, but that and the FPU are about the only advantage it has over the Nehemiah, it looks like.

Just guessing here, but it looks like it'll be the same, performance-wise, as a Nehemiah in most things, but it'll be able to rip CDs faster and maybe do some low-res Divx encoding in a "reasonable" amount of time?

the_smell · Post by **the_smell** » Mon May 24, 2004 3:02 pm

This looks very cool

But it would be nice to see some actually useful benchmarks. I guess we'll wait and see if this performs as well as we'd all hope. If it does it looks like it'll be time to replace that already looking old nehemiah 1.2GHz! Doh

vortex222 · Post by **vortex222** » Mon May 24, 2004 3:06 pm

amd also tends to be conservitive with there vcore as well, im sure that one would be capable of lowering the vcore even further to make it even cooler running, in that case i would think this chip would have a far better proformance per watt ratio to the cpu.

i would also hope that some motherboards based on this chip would be alot cheaper as well.

Putz · Post by **Putz** » Mon May 24, 2004 3:54 pm

Interesting that they put the "Filesystem" benchmark in there... First of all, I don't really see how it's a relevant test. Second of all, the hard drives in the platforms aren't the same. ??

ghowarth · Post by **ghowarth** » Mon May 24, 2004 4:39 pm

it said at the bottom of that benchmark chart that the AMD cpu was running on a modified ASUS A7V8X-MX, which is the board I have. Wonder what they modified

sgtpokey · Post by **sgtpokey** » Mon May 24, 2004 6:12 pm

One quibble, this isn't an Athlon, but a seperate cpu-line: the Geode.
And it looks like AMD is positioning this line in Via's space (Nehemiah)

I dunno, I think I'll stick with the mobile athlon (barton core). Price per performance probably highly favors the mobile athlon and performance per watt may also favor the athlon mobile. I won't pay attention to this chip until I see benchmarks that places it's performance in context

I guess I'm not sure what AMD is trying to do with this new line (other than establish a brand)

sgtpokey · Post by **sgtpokey** » Mon May 24, 2004 6:46 pm

Hmm, I don't like the performance rating scheme on these Geodes, it's misleading at best.

For kicks, i read the white paper on the amd site. Be aware that the processor rating on these geode chips is not using the same processer rating system as their normal Athlons or AMD 64's, but a new system called EPRS [Embedded Processor Rating System] , a rating system invented by a company called Syncromesh and explained in the whitepaper. Now if you've ever seen benchmarks on Via's Nehemiah core you'll see the following quote pretty much sums up both the performance of the geode, and the questionable nature of the new EPRS rating scheme:

The EPRS score indicates that the 1 GHz Geode NX processor,
although clocked at 1.0 GHz, performs at approximately
1.6 times the 1 GHz VIA Nehemiah.

http://www.amd.com/us-en/assets/content ... 051904.pdf

To place the performance in context, a quote from MikeC's Mini-ITX review:

the Via EPIA-M10000 [Nehemiah at 1ghz] does not fare well with conventional benchmarks such as Sisoftware Sandra, PCMark and others. They show the unit to be roughly equivalent in performance to an Intel Celeron or P3, 500~600 MHz.

Now if you dig further it gets worse and not better. In the individual benchmarks that make up this EPRS, the ones that the Geode handily beat the Nehemiah are the synthetic benchmarks, and for the most part the real-world bench marks were very close.

So give me the normal Mobile Athlons any day!
And bad AMD for muddying up their own performance ratings!!

wumpus · Post by **wumpus** » Mon May 24, 2004 8:59 pm

Trust me, the Athlon will CLOBBER the Nehemiah at the same clock rate. They are not even in the same league, really. I own a Nehemiah 1ghz and it's really quite underwhelming in terms of real-world performance.. nowhere near what I would expect from a coppermine P3-1ghz or even a "classic" AMD thunderbird 1ghz.

Definitely noticable under routine usage IMO.

Post by **MikeC** » Mon May 24, 2004 10:22 pm

Looks to me like some of you guys are already missing the point. Someone said it already -- the geode is in the VIA space -- absolutely!

What is significant is that another player has noticed that the market for inexpensive cool running CPUs exists and may even be growing. Otherwise, why put out this product? If it is a growth market, that's good news for us.

Very positive news. I have no doubt this geode will not provide the same performance as the XPs, what with such low power consumption. But at thermal levels that challenge VIA, they will clobber it, and provide something much closer in FPU and mem performance to the Duron/XP... which are plenty good still.

CoolGav · Post by **CoolGav** » Tue May 25, 2004 4:39 am

As someone interested in embedded stuff, this is a great announcement. About 3 years ago where I work got in a few SBC (Single Board Computers) with Geode GX1 processors - supposedly pentium class CPUs running at 300MHz. They had a small heatsink which allowed us to mount them upside down onto another board - ie the CPU and heatsink combined wasn't as tall as a PCI slot!

Our main product uses passivly cooled 486s, and if we were lucky to get funding for an update, it would make sense to go with such a CPU as these Geode 1W versions - loads more power for us and newer functionality.

I have a few ideas for embedded devices which would benefit from x86 because there's no need to port linux, and plenty of tools are around etc... The Geode seems to be competing against Via's offerings in this market. Embedded processors can do whatever you want - set top boxes can always run a dedicated encoder or decoder to give better performance... Embedded stuff can often have dedicated, non-standard boards, and the CPU is chosen for a number of reasons, including the low power. The new Geode is following on from the earlier ones - pitched into the embedded market.

If they run on Skt-A boards with some revised voltage regulation then its likely to open them up to more uses, especially as we're all thinking of a passive desktop or laptop PC. The mass production of PC parts means lower prices than proprietry boards, which for prototype products can mean rapid development to test the thing can work...

RaNDoMMAI · Post by **RaNDoMMAI** » Tue May 25, 2004 4:40 am

Ralf Hutter wrote:Looks very interesting, but they seem to be pushing it towards imbedded applications, just like some are doing with the Banias/855 Intel CPU. We may never see affordable, available mobos with an AGP slot.

If this pans out, I'll be trying an AMD CPU for the first time in three years.

Whoa Ralf you dont like AMD?

Cant beat a 2500 easily OC to 3200 for under 100bucks, and now AMD has the mobile version which are easy to cool and easy to OC to 3200 speeds all for like 77 bucks.

I say yeah AMD for helping us poor ppl have decent comps!!!

~RaNDoM

silvervarg · Post by **silvervarg** » Tue May 25, 2004 6:07 am

The Geode is not a new CPU, but it is a new version of this CPU that has been released. The new version has higher speed, and does more work per watt.
As CoolGav mentioned the Geode GX1 hit the marker about 3 years ago, by then it was released by National Semiconductors. AMD bought the Geode from them in August 2003.

The older versions of the Geode was not compatible with the AMD CPU's, but this seems to have changed to the new release. However I have not seen any info about a single normal board that can run the Geode without modification. I think the modifications done by AMD to this Asus board is beyond what most normal users like to do.

The Geode seems to be a bit slow for a HTPC, but it could take much of the VIA C3 market (e.g. low power small and silent desktops).
Other interesting markets are low power laptops, handheld computers, vehicle computers, embedded systems etc.
For many of these markets we are talking about mass production, so the price is very important. The rate $65 for a Geode NX1500 is if you buy 10.000 units. That means the retail price is much higher. I expect the retail price to drop a lot soon.
For comparison the VIA C3 1GHz with mini-ITX motherboard costs £99 at mini-itx.com now. This is the price that the Geode NX1500 complete with motherboard and heatsink needs to compete with.

Seal · Post by **Seal** » Tue May 25, 2004 8:49 am

now that is NICE! great news that kinda stuff for the world of silent computing, couple that as well with intels news that they are going to concerntrate more on mobile processors. Anyone know how many watts of heat the mini-itx boards pump out in comparison?

Now all we need is a mini-itx sized amd motherboard packed with features such as mpeg 2 decompression and various other bits and pieces and were all set!!!

sgtpokey · Post by **sgtpokey** » Tue May 25, 2004 10:11 am

Oh I'm glad there's more choice in for embedded processors, but like I said before, I think it's a bit disengenious on AMD's part to use a different performance rating scheme than the scheme they use for their other processor lines.

It's already causing confusion on this thread. The Geode does not do the same work clock for clock than an Athlon XP. It does less. How much comes from AMD's own website [refer to previous post]. It's expected to do 1.5-1.6x more work than the Via Nehemiah clock for clock.

If they just stuck to the same performance rating scale, then there would be no confusion and a consistency in performance rating.

(Yes, I'm aware that Intel also confuses the market with their own segregation of lines so I guess I'm just disappointed that AMD is following their lead)

In Via's space it's a very marketable processor... but for my HTPC I'll stick with a mobile barton.

Interitus · Post by **Interitus** » Tue May 25, 2004 2:00 pm

In Via's space it's a very marketable processor... but for my HTPC I'll stick with a mobile barton.

That's just it. It's in Via's space for a reason. If you think about it, they're more broadening their horizons than just trying to beat Intel.

AMD's always been my favorite due to flexibility. Even back during the introduction of the Duron. But if you think about it, they're spanning 4 markets now. There's the Athlon 64 and FX for the hardcore gaming machines, there's the regular XP for a budget system, the Mobile XP's for the Overclocker and Underclocker/Volter (I have a 2500 that runs 200x9.5 @ 1.20v, and let me tell you that thing runs cool as a winter in Philly with my Zalman on 5v) and now they have the Geode for the HTPC or quiet computer. Yeah you may want to keep your Mobile for your HTPC, but your HTPC doesn't need to be able to run HL2 @ 1600x1200 with no hitches. A well built HTPC around one of these Geodes will be more than enough and inexpensive to boot.

You're failing to see that the whole shift of the tides here isn't about power anymore. It's not about who has more Ghz, who has more cache...it's about cooling these beasts down, getting SIMILAR performance at a much greater benefit, and it's about value. This is the market AMD's filling with this Geode. A quiet, cool, yet somewhat powerful CPU for an everyday living atmosphere, that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, and can easily reside in SFF environments with virtually no airflow due to it's low heat output and power consumption.

Intel and AMD both know what was announced earlier this month. Power and Ghz don't just come for free anymore. Think about it. Even DELL computers are getting louder. You just can't quietly cool a Prescott or an Athlon 64 without spending extra money. Extra money that's their loss. Dell and Gateway and HP all don't want to run Zalmans or SLK's in their systems.

I was shocked to look in the discussion section and not have more people excited about intel's decisions regarding P-M. I think it's about time this happened and that people realize power is more than just a Ghz rating. There are other things that can be done to increase performance. IMO, this spans to more than just the CPU market. Hard drives, RAM, PSU's, everything. When's the last time you saw a PC and said "damn that really does need a 600w PSU!" or the last time you wondered why the ATA133 spec is never going to see saturation? I'm just glad that somebody's finally realized that speed isn't everything.

anyways sorry for the rant...lol

sgtpokey · Post by **sgtpokey** » Tue May 25, 2004 2:38 pm

you may want to keep your Mobile for your HTPC, but your HTPC doesn't need to be able to run HL2 @ 1600x1200 with no hitches. A well built HTPC around one of these Geodes will be more than enough and inexpensive to boot.

I hear you, and I agree with you. I'll say it again, it's good that they are positioning it into Via's market. But some people are like me and their HTPC does double duty as an HTPC AND a gaming machine AND various other things, which this Geod is NOT good for. So for my needs, I'd use a mobile athlon. For people like me, and for ease of comparison, I wish they had kept the same performance rating standards so there IS no confusion on what this Geode is good for.

And yes I'm very excited about the Pentium M too, or will be when the price goes doen a bit.

PorBleemo · Post by **PorBleemo** » Fri May 28, 2004 10:15 am

RaNDoMMAI wrote:
Ralf Hutter wrote:Looks very interesting, but they seem to be pushing it towards imbedded applications, just like some are doing with the Banias/855 Intel CPU. We may never see affordable, available mobos with an AGP slot.

If this pans out, I'll be trying an AMD CPU for the first time in three years.
Whoa Ralf you dont like AMD?

Cant beat a 2500 easily OC to 3200 for under 100bucks, and now AMD has the mobile version which are easy to cool and easy to OC to 3200 speeds all for like 77 bucks.

I say yeah AMD for helping us poor ppl have decent comps!!!

~RaNDoM

Ralf isn't an AMD person. But I have to say with the upcoming desktop Pentium-Ms I might go over to the "dark side" of the force, just maybe...

Dirge · Post by **Dirge** » Mon Jun 07, 2004 3:41 pm

Here is a link to vr-zone's cebit coverage and some good photographs of AMD's new Geode

http://www.vr-zone.com/?i=879&s=7

Seal · Post by **Seal** » Tue Jun 08, 2004 12:13 am

What bad photos, did he not have a flash? What was he thinking?

Anyway thats pretty amazing, was that genocide mobo running without any form of heatsink!? I know it runs cool... but that cant be right!?

silvervarg · Post by **silvervarg** » Tue Jun 08, 2004 1:31 am

running without any form of heatsink!? I know it runs cool... but that cant be right!?

Note that they have 2 boards. The one with the Geode NX1500 is not running. The one they are running (without heatsink) is the Geode 533. That CPU is rated 1.1W, and it has a quite large chip package, so it should be easy to dissipate the 1.1W without any heatsink at all.
So they are defenatly running without a heatsink. But we are talking about the speed of roughly a hypotetical PIII 266 MHz.

I think the Geode NX1500 with a passive heatsink on will be much more interesting. A Zalman 6000Cu flower heatsink should run this thing with ease.

I wonder a few other things about that Geode 533 they are running.
That extra card that is connected, is that some kind of solid state drive?
They got what looks like the input from a PSU brick directly to the motherboard. Do they have buildtin DC-DC converter on motherboard?
Is the keyboard and mouse connectors at the front of the card or is that just USB connectors?

AMD releases 1Ghz Geode with only 9watts of heat! Update

AMD releases 1Ghz Geode with only 9watts of heat! Update