Power-saving passion
HyperTransport 3 offers some cute power-saving features of its own. First, the bandwidth available can be throttled up and down as needed and can also be independently set for each direction.
So where nothing much is happening, you can save power and where a whole lot of data does need to be fed to the CPU, the pipe can be opened right up but still kept narrow in the opposite direction if there's not a lot of control data having to go to the northbridge.
Craftily, it's also possible to entirely shut down the link between CPU and northbridge while code is executing in the CPU, though what trickery is used to do this wasn't explained.
Another nice touch is PowerXPress - new technology used to dynamically switch between using integrated graphics and external (well, a discrete plug-in graphics board) without having to reboot.
The idea is that a gamer will be able to play at high frame rates from the discrete graphics board when the PC is running on the mains but automagically switch to the lower-power integrated graphics when running on battery.
Just in case you were wondering, according to Mr Steinman, although the switch is automatic, the user will be able to choose whether or not it takes place.
Thoughts on Griffin and Puma or on AMD and its rivalry with Intel and NVIDIA? We'd be keen to hear them in the HEXUS.community.
