Athlon64 3200+ How much of a PS?

[cloasters]

A look at AMD's site reveals no information of value about required power supply capacity for the Socket 754 Athlon64's. I assume that these 64 bit CPU's are power hogs. Anyone in the know on this?

[Aedan]

Take a look at the thermal dissipation - that's typically closely aligned with power supply requirements. Remember that AMD's specs are usually the worse case, and the typical values are much lower.

[cloasters]

Thanks, Aedan! I saw 89W mooted as max temp for A64 3000, A64 3200 and A64 3400. What multiplier would one use to figure out the required PS capacity? I guesstimate that 89W * 6 = 534 W is conservative enough?

Such PS's from SPI Sparkle aren't unreasonable. Yet the PC Power&Cooling 510 ATX with PFC looks mighty nice. And expensive, naturally.

[Aedan]

I saw 70C as the maximum permissable temperature for the Athlon64 range! Max P_state (IE, maximum power) is 89W. Min P_state (IE, not asleep) is 35W.

Oddly enough though, the Athlon FX51 doesn't have figures for Stop Grant.

The Athlon XP range were at about 76.8W, so we're only talking about 20W more. I'd figure that any PSU that can comfortably run an Athlon XP will probably ok with an Athlon64.

I would guess that most motherboard designers would take the power from the 12V line, so a PSU that can deliver the power requirements on the 12V line will be a must.

Like any sizing, you should take into account the power requirements for the whole system, not just the processor.

[cloasters]

Originally Posted by Áedán

I saw 70C as the maximum permissable temperature for the Athlon64 range! Max P_state (IE, maximum power) is 89W. Min P_state (IE, not asleep) is 35W.

Oddly enough though, the Athlon FX51 doesn't have figures for Stop Grant.

The Athlon XP range were at about 76.8W, so we're only talking about 20W more. I'd figure that any PSU that can comfortably run an Athlon XP will probably ok with an Athlon64.

I would guess that most motherboard designers would take the power from the 12V line, so a PSU that can deliver the power requirements on the 12V line will be a must.

Like any sizing, you should take into account the power requirements for the whole system, not just the processor.

Thank you for the info, Aedan. Looks like AMD farmed out this spec to individual mainboard makers. One source says MSI says shows compatible and approved PS's as low as 265W for AMD64 platform. Guess that $200 to PC P&C for a 510W Turbo-Cool isn't a must. Yay!