AMD Turion 64 X2 Performance Preview

The Origins of AMD's Turion 64 Mobile Technology

By now you must be more than well aware of AMD's immense success of their K8 architecture - a design that propelled AMD right in the center of processor technology spotlights and it has managed to remain that way ever since with highly competitive if not, industry leading processors that kept its rival on its toes. This architecture first debuted in the high-end workstation and server space in the form of the Opteron lineup and has since garnered major industry support and acknowledgement thanks to its excellent performance scaling, high performance per unit power consumption, easy implementation (such as x86-64 ISA) and other benefits brought about within its platform. Not to mention are the well-entrenched Sempron, Athlon 64, Athlon 64 X2 and Athlon 64 FX processor series that followed suit soon after and catered to every possible price and performance envelop in the desktop user segment.

Where once AMD was playing second fiddle to Intel, they have managed to turn the boat around full swing and are now paving their own path to meet market needs and demands. While AMD has been battling hard and setting the pace in both the server and desktop segments for the past three years, they had unfortunately neglected the mobile segment where their offerings were far outmatched by Intel's Centrino Technology. While we all acknowledge that AMD is certainly not the giant that Intel is, they could have made plans earlier for a proper counterattack on the mobile front. Intel's Centrino Technology's early inception of tackling many verticals such as performance, power and mobility really made a deep impact among both consumers and AMD's already small mobile segment. While Mobile Athlon 64 processors did crop up to retain the performance crown on the mobile front, it was most suitable only as a Desktop Replacement (DTR) notebook for it had a much higher thermal envelope and guzzled power as well. Needless to say, they were mostly bulky. Lacking the refinements seen on the Intel Centrino Technology, naturally, AMD was not a convincing alternative on the mobile front in the early days.

The Evolution of Turion 64 Mobile Technology

To douse that once and for all, AMD outlined and debuted the Turion 64 Mobile Technology in the first quarter of 2005. Similar to Intel's Centrino Mobile Technology, the Turion 64 Mobile technology was a platform consisting of AMD's new mainstream mobile CPU, the Turion 64, along with an ecosystem of industry partners supplying mobile system chipsets and wireless LAN connectivity. While the Intel approach restricts a notebook's components to Intel's own variety to be validated as a Centiro-class notebook, AMD's approach classifies a notebook as being Turion 64 Mobile Technology compliant as long as the many recognized industry players by AMD supply the necessary chipsets (and of course utilizing the Turion 64 processor).

So while AMD's model provides a far greater notebook variety and consumer choice, it is also much more difficult to fine-tune each notebook since the component possibilities are vast. This is the reason why we encountered many Turion 64 Mobile Technology based notebooks that were unrefined in both performance and power consumption in the early days. It wasn't till towards the end of 2005 when we came across much more formidable Turion 64 notebooks that were able to hold their own in performance to price and mobility quotients commendably. In fact, AMD's mobile market share had increased with the help of the Turion 64 Mobile Technology unlike the stagnant state it was a year earlier.

The Turion 64 process itself was basically made of the same ingredients as their desktop-class Athlon 64 processors except that they were toned down and were manufactured with the then-new 90nm SOI process technology. Consequently, AMD managed to obtain smaller, more affordable CPUs that consumed less power and had reduced heat dissipation - giving rise to smaller profile notebooks bearing decently powerful mobile CPUs of the K8 architecture that happened to both power efficient and affordable. However, Intel upped the ante once again in early 2006 with the first dual-core CPUs to hit the notebook scene - Core Duo. Any limelight and momentum buildup on AMD's mobile parts were quickly snatched as Intel's marketing machine hammered away their new Intel Centrino Duo Mobile Technology platform. However this time round, AMD was in a much better position than it had been earlier and it wasn't long before they retaliated with the Turion 64 X2 Mobile Technology, ala dual-core Turion. However, there's more to it than just the core doubling; so read on for the details.

The New Turion 64 X2 Mobile Technology

Like the original Turion 64, the newer X2 version shares some of its roots with that of the desktop Athlon 64 X2 variant. Using two processing cores, each with its own dedicated Level 2 cache memory and integrating a System Request Switch and a Crossbar Switch that interface the processing cores with the on-die memory controller and HyperTransport interconnect, the basic structure largely remains the same.

New Integrated Dual-Channel DDR2 Memory Controller

However, in view of the imminent AM2 processor launch for the desktop systems that would utilize DDR2 memory instead of the standard DDR memory, the Turion 64 X2 has been designed with an integrated DDR2 memory controller instead. Not only that, but the once single-channel memory controller on the Turion 64 has been bolstered to a dual-channel controller, identical to that of the upcoming AM2 processors. Supports DDR2-400, DDR2-533 and DRR2-667 for up to 10.7GB/s total memory bandwidth.

New Socket S1 Interface

As a result, the old Socket-754 (desktop-class) interface used on the original Turion 64 had to make way for a more optimized Socket S1 interface. Although Socket S1 only has 638-pins, the CPU packaging and interface is optimized for the processor's requirements in a notebook environment where AMD mentioned that there's reduced need for many grounding pins. Plus pin assignments and optimization brought forward reduced pin count needs even though the processor now has a dual-channel memory controller.

This also helped to reduce the Turion 64 X2 processor's overall package size and it is now smaller than its predecessor. Remember, space is premium on a mobile platform and thus this reduction would go the distance for an even more most favorable internal layout. While this might be a small blow to the DIY community hoping to get a desktop-class motherboard and procure a mobile-class processor for the best of performance, power consumption and thermal dissipation as has been the case for the original Turion 64 processors (which shared the Socket-754 interface among some desktop parts), you can bet on innovative and niche motherboard vendors like AOpen and ASUS to perhaps conjure a Socket S1 motherboard. Time will tell if this comes true.

More Performance for Less Power

Being a modern mobile part, AMD didn't just integrate two cores to the die and stop there. Extensive Multi-Core Power Management and Dynamic Thermal Management techniques have been integrated as well to ensure the Turion 64 X2 processor is as efficient and power conservative as possible while maintaining the performance legacy that the "X2" series have always delivered. You would expected that with double the processing cores integrated, the Turion 64 X2 would have a higher power consumption but instead, process improvements along the way have helped AMD maintain the exact same 35W Thermal Design Power (TDP) of the original AMD Turion 64 despite the same 90nm SOI fabrication technology. Also, AMD has tweaked the Turion 64 X2 a great deal in the power department that it is actually more power conservative than the original single core counterpart that actually draws less power under the various power management states. How does a 5% to 8% drop sound? A more complex processor and yet less power hungry � you can't beat that combination. In fact, it's even better than the Intel Core Duo if the data specs published by both CPU vendors hold true.

With Multi-Core Power Management, AMD has also made the processing cores aware of their working (or non-working state) and automatically assert the halt command to conserve processing cycles. If system remains unused with no processes for either cores, the system can drop down into even deeper sleep states for better energy conservation. Even the HyperTransport bus is now power-optimized and can be powered down for further savings. Now, couple the Turion 64 X2 with a smart system chipset such as NVIDIA's upcoming mobile C51 offerings and a suitable display panel, the notebook might just offer NVIDIA's SmartDimmer technology which automatically dims the LCD in a bid to conserve some power while not having the screen completely blanked out when not in use (which may come across as an annoyance to many users). And yes, longtime readers of our articles will remember that this idea was first showcased in Computex 2004 and it is finally nearing maturity. ATI's just announced Radeon Xpress 1100 series for Turion 64 X2 Mobile Technology notebooks too have a similar feature that's known as Vari-Bright technology, but details of its workings nor demos have yet to be disseminated by the folks at ATI.

Lower Latency L2 Cache

Note that the CPU's L2 cache is solely for each processor's use and it isn't shared like in the Intel Core Duo design. While the latter's advantage is a larger shared cache storage accessible by either core, the nature of the shared cache design does not allow both processors to access the core simultaneously and they have to arbitrate (take turns) to do so via a shared bus interface. The result? Higher cache latencies. This is not a problem of the Turion 64 X2 processor with each core's dedicated cache. Simpler in design with reduced latency penalties, the only limitation is reduced total processor cache storage since it is not a unified shared cache. Depending on the workload types, both AMD's and Intel's processors have their advantages in this design aspect.

The Turion 64 X2 Processor Family

The sum up most of what we've shared, the following is a processor comparison table pitting the new Turion 64 X2 processor against the original Turion 64 and Intel's Core Duo processor for various processor attributes:-

In short, the new Turion 64 X2 mobile processor is the first X86 64-bit mobile dual-core processor for mainstream and performance notebooks with hardware virtualization built-in. Endowed with good processing bandwidth throughput by virtue of its architecture, it advances the original Turion 64 processor with dual processing cores, an updated dual-channel DDR2 memory controller and a new optimized socket. Seems like the Turion 64 X2 would give Intel's Dual Core a run for its money if history repeats itself.

The following table summarizes the various Turion 64 X2 CPU models available at launch and we should be expecting to see a good number of notebooks based on this platform during Computex 2006 with the actual retail following soon after the expo just like last year's Turion 64 spearheading:-

We had the opportunity to have an early hands-on preview of the capabilities of the Turion 64 X2 processor by means of MSI's upcoming S271 notebook, which came equipped with the processor model TL-52. Not really the top of the line which we were expecting, but nevertheless a good model for our benchmark comparison as we'll be showing you real soon.

The Mobile Sempron Update

The formation of the new Socket S1 interface will lay the grounds for the new mobile AMD platform. Hence, to prevent ostracizing the value line Sempron series out of the equation, AMD has updated the specifications of the Sempron processors as well to conform to the new platform. Using the same new Socket S1, the Sempron will also feature a dual-channel DDR2 memory controller to remain compatible with the interface. However hardware-assisted virtualization technology gets the axe, as well as the second processing core too. Thus, the Mobile Sempron is very much what the Turion 64 X2 is, but with only a single core. Interestingly, to keep the power consumption in check, AMD is still restricting the HTT speed to 800MHz versus 1GHz on the desktop parts.

MSI S271 Pre-Evaluation Unit - A Black Diamond Awaiting Polish?

As we mentioned earlier, we received an early Turion 64 X2 Mobile Technology based notebook from MSI well before the date of this publication and we found that many kinks have yet to be ironed out. Notably, the power management side of things. This aspect was so profound that our normal suite of notebook testing had to be abandoned for some other tests of shorter duration. As such, you would see that our choice of benchmarks was quite unusual for this time round, but still adequate to paint the picture.

As for the MSI S271 black stallion, it closely resembled the S270 brother that was based on the original Turion 64 processor. Overall build quality and features were very much identical as MSI did a quick adaptation and we believe they are in the process of fine-tuning the S271 notebook for mass consumption soon. We'll evaluate the notebook in our usual thoroughness then, but for now, we'll leave you with a few photo shots of it and on to our short performance evaluation of this new platform.

Test Setup

Well, the MSI S271 Turion 64 X2 Mobile Technology is a notebook, so there's not much control we have over there. However, we had the liberty to put up appropriate comparisons with the notebook from our previous CPU test runs from a desktop Sempron 3400+ processor all the way to an Athlon 64 X2 3800+. We even had the original Turion 64 ML-30 running on a modified desktop motherboard that had very similar characteristics as the TL-52 Turion 64 X2 processor such as total L2 cache size (1MB) and clock speed (1.6GHz). As such, we were able to make direct comparisons to see how much the Turion 64 X2 has progressed ahead of the original Turion 64. The complete test setup detail of all the different CPU configurations compared are as listed exhaustively below.

MSI S271 Turion 64 X2 Mobile Technology pre-evaluation notebook includes:-

• ATI Radeon Xpress 200 based board
• AMD Athlon Turion 64 X2 TL-52 processor (1.6GHz, 2 x 512KB L2)
• 1 x 512MB Transcend DDR2-667 non-ECC memory module (CAS 5.0, 5-5-13)
• Integrated Radeon X300 graphics on-chip
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 2

Components used in the AMD Turion 64 ML-30 testbed include:-

• MSI K8-VMM (VIA K8T800 PRO)
• AMD Turion 64 ML-30 processor (1.6GHz, 1MB L2)
• 2 x 512MB Corsair DDR400 non-ECC memory modules (CAS 2.5, 3-3-6)
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 80GB SATA hard disk drive (one single NTFS partition)
• MSI GeForce FX 5700 256MB (AGP) - with NVIDIA Detonator XP 61.34 (beta)
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 1

Components used in the AMD Sempron 3400+ & Athlon 64 X2 3800+ testbed include:-

• ASUS A8V Deluxe (VIA K8T800 PRO)
• AMD Sempron 3400+ & AMD Athlon 64 X2 3800+ processors
• 2 x 512MB Corsair DDR400 non-ECC memory modules (CAS 2.5, 3-3-6)
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 80GB SATA hard disk drive (one single NTFS partition)
• MSI GeForce FX 5700 256MB (AGP) - with NVIDIA Detonator XP 61.34 (beta)
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 1

Components used in the Pentium 4 630 & 660 testbed include:-

• Intel D925XECV2 Desktop Board (Intel 925XE Express chipset)
• Intel Pentium 4 630 & 660 processors (3.0GHz & 3.6GHz)
• 2 x 512MB Micron DDR2-533 non-ECC memory modules (CAS 4, 4-4-12)
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 80GB SATA hard disk drive (one single NTFS partition)
• MSI GeForce PCX 5750 128MB (PCI Express x16) - with NVIDIA Detonator XP 61.34 (beta)
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 1

Components used in the Pentium D 920 testbed include:-

• ASUS P5WD2-E Premium (Intel 975X Express chipset)
• Intel Pentium D 920 Processor (2.8GHz)
• 2 x 512MB Kingston DDR2-667 non-ECC memory modules (CAS 4, 4-4-10)
• Seagate Barracuda 7200.7 80GB SATA hard disk drive (one single NTFS partition)
• MSI GeForce PCX 5750 128MB (PCI Express x16) - with NVIDIA Detonator XP 61.34 (beta)
• Microsoft Windows XP Professional with Service Pack 1

Benchmarks

The benchmarks used in this review include:-

Futuremark PCMark04 Pro

Futuremark PCMark05 Pro

Futuremark 3DMark05 Pro

Additional Notes

Our MSI S271 Turion 64 X2 Mobile Technology evaluation only shipped with one stick of 512MB DDR2-667 memory and that means it was unfortunately crippled to operate on a single memory channel. We hadn't any other compatible memory module at hand to plug in and enable dual-channel, nor did we have enough time with the notebook to try and obtain other modules from vendors. It's unfortunate that our allotted time with the notebook was rather short, but it may as well have been such since the early test unit had power management issues to run any full fledged in-depth test run. As such, you'll notice that we've opted to showcase results from a very select few benchmarks. We'll show you the full Monty when get the proper retail unit in the near future.

Benchmark Results

Results – Futuremark PCMark04

Since we have a ready pool of results from the slightly older PCMark04 test suite, we begin our comparison with CPU performance based on this benchmark. Looking at the scores in the graph below, the Turion 64 X2 processor has a near 50% performance jump from its single-core sibling. Given that that the once single 1MB L2 cache of the old Turion 64 processor is now halved to 512KB L2 cache per core on the Turion 64 X2, we believe that if each core had double the cache, the Turion 64 X2 would have garnered a much higher score against its older single-core sibling.

Results – Futuremark PCMark05

The performance standings don't really vary all too much on the 2005 version of the same benchmark but note that the performance berth between the Turion 64 X2 and the rest of the processors have increased somewhat from PCMark04. One of the more obvious reasons that explain this disparity is that PCMark05 tests are larger and benefit from the larger cache of the comparison processors more than in PCMark04.

Results – Futuremark 3DMark05

Games that are multi-threaded definitely strongly favor the Turion 64 X2 processor and its older single-core variant isn't all that shabby itself. The X2 version gives 10% more performance crunching power and as you can see from the results, this test isn't too cache sensitive. The processor's performance here is as good as any regular desktop dual-core system, which is very commendable.

Closing Comments

From the rather small pool of results gathered, the AMD Turion 64 X2 processor seems to garner very positive results. When you take into consideration that what we had time to hands-on was a mere TL-52 processor model and not the top of the line version, I'm sure you can take a guess of what the top performing model has in store and we are very eager to find that out when the possibility arises.

As long as the Turion 64 X2 lives up to it TDP spec and manages power even better than its predecessor, we are pretty sure that the processor combined with the forthcoming mobile platform update from NVIDIA and ATI can really propel AMD's Turion 64 X2 Mobile Technology into strong consumer favor. Hopefully, the Turion 64 X2 Mobile Technology would be a bigger sleeper hit than the first generation Turion 64. If it does, AMD has created yet another winner, but a new first for the mobile segment. While Intel's Core 2 Duo processors are slated to be out in the third quarter of this year, AMD's next revision of mobile processor would be out to play catch then and probably give Intel a good run-in because AMD's next revision of the Turion 64 X2 would be based on the 65nm silicon process technology. Rumored to have a similar TDP as the current processors, you can probably imagine that it's going to be a lot smaller and faster even when nothing else is propped up. While this is up for argument couple of months away, stay tuned for the near timeline when we assess a full retail Turion 64 X2 Mobile Technology notebook for the complete lowdown.

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