AMD PowerNow! Technology?

[doanster]

I'm considering getting a Mobile Athlon 64+ for an old desktop mobo with the NF3 250GB chipset.

Does the PowerNow! throttling feature on the CPU work with desktop boards? Or is it only specifically for laptops?

 

[Cogman]

I believe you have to have a motherboard chipset that supports it. However, since you are getting a Athlon 64, my bets are that you will be using AMD's Cool'n'Quiet anyways (Essentially the same thing).

IIRC Socket 7xx (I forget what is was, it was short lived) Didn't support Cool'n'Quiet while Socket 939 and above do.

If you really want a cool CPU, some of Intels new celerons operate at 35W (Very cool).

 

[doanster]

I have an old socket 754 board that I want to reuse for a low power server. Yes, socket 754 does support Cool'n'Quiet 🙂

 

[soccerballtux]

s754 supports cnq.
CnQ is much better than speedstep imo. Gives you full voltage control in windows.

 

[heyheybooboo]

PowerNow started on the enterprise side with the 2p/4p Optys - moved to the desktop with the s940 IIRC (if you want to call that desktop). Is this like the new PhII C&Q ??

 

[brxndxn]

CnQ is impressive, imo.. If you get a very cool-running chip (like some of the old Semprons), the cpu fan will stop entirely.. and the system just keeps on going..

 

[doanster]

Originally posted by: brxndxn
CnQ is impressive, imo.. If you get a very cool-running chip (like some of the old Semprons), the cpu fan will stop entirely.. and the system just keeps on going..

Got my server up and running now with an Athlon 64 3700+ clocked down to only 1GHz and around 1.3V, with CPU throttling on the mobo bios set to 25%. CnQ enabled.

With current fan settings, my Athlon 64 does the same thing that you describe. I'm happy 🙂


Next up: dealing with my X800XT AIW video card. Just underclocking it now with ATItool, but can't decrease voltages. Suggestions?