AMD Phenom II X6 1055T now available with 95W TDP

AMD let loose a couple of six-core Phenom II X6 chips a couple of months' ago. Priced at £240 for the 3.2GHz 1090T and £160 for the 2.8GHz 1055T, AMD's hexa-core processors, both rated at 125W TDP, provide significant competition for Intel's mid-range Core i7 quad-core CPUs.

The Phenom II X6 1055T is our pick of the two, providing excellent multi-tasking performance for a reasonable outlay, and the chip is about to become even sweeter to the hordes of enthusiasts as AMD releases it in a lower-power version.

Picture credit: Akiba

Japanese site Akiba has snapped pictures of the Phenom II X6 1055T. What's new here is that it ships with a 95W TDP, compared to the 125W TDP for most European stock. A lower TDP is better for the obvious reason that it consumes less power when under full load, and given that AMD has been able to hit the same 2.8GHz with a 24 percent reduction in power, the chip should also overclock like a champ, too.

Picture credit: Akiba

Other than a reduction in power, the new chip is otherwise identical to the 125W model presented on retailers' catalogues. Interestingly, AMD doesn't list the 125W model now, so we can infer that 95W chip - HDT55TWFK6DGR (tray) and HDT55TWFGRBOX (retail) - will begin proliferating through etailers in the coming days.

Tempted by a 95W 1055T for £160? Be sure to look out for the codes, as the 125W retail-box's code is HDT55TFBGRBOX.

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Amazing achievement on 45nm.

I found this an interesting read:

wikipedia
The thermal design power (TDP), sometimes called thermal design point, represents the maximum amount of power the cooling system in a computer is required to dissipate. For example, a laptop's CPU cooling system may be designed for a 20 watt TDP, which means that it can dissipate up to 20 watts of heat without exceeding the maximum junction temperature for the computer chip. It can do this using an active cooling method such as a fan or any of the three passive cooling methods, convection, thermal radiation or conduction. Typically, a combination of methods is used. The TDP is typically not the most power the chip could ever draw, such as by a power virus, but rather the maximum power that it would draw when running real applications. This ensures the computer will be able to handle essentially all applications without exceeding its thermal envelope, or requiring a cooling system for the maximum theoretical power, which would cost more and achieve no benefit.

In some cases the TDP has been under-estimated and that in real applications (typically strenuous, such as video encoding or games) the CPU has exceeded the TDP. In this case, the CPU will either cause a system failure (a “therm-trip”) or throttle its speed down. Most modern CPUs will only cause a therm-trip on a catastrophic cooling failure such as a stuck fan or a loose heatsink.

Since safety margins and the definition of what constitutes a real application vary between manufacturers, TDP values between different manufacturers cannot be accurately compared. While a processor with a TDP of 100 W will almost certainly use more power at full load than a processor with a 10 W TDP, it may or may not use more power than a processor from a different manufacturer that has a 90 W TDP. Additionally, TDPs are often specified for families of processors, with the low-end models usually using significantly less power than those at the high end of the family.

Odd about the TDP not necessarily being the maximum power draw. For laptops especially, if I buy a laptop, I want to know I can use it to its full potential (e.g. Folding, should I so desire, or perhaps more likely video encoding) without it dying in a horrific ball of fire and molten plastic because the cooling wasn't up to the actual power dissipation needed.
Any idea what improvements they made to reduce the TDP? Or just by binning chips?

How did they do that??!! I wonder whats gonna happen when they go to 32nm

AMD will tell you it's a combination of improvements in the manufacturing process, leading to better yields, augmented by binning.

Whatever else, six cores at 2.8GHz, plus Turbo Core, is pretty damn good.

The lower TDP didn't result in higher overclocks on the Q9550S.

AMD Phenom II X6 1055T now available with 95W TDP

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