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Introduction

With all of Intel's fanfare surounding the energy efficiency of their Core 2 Duo CPU's, AMD has had to find a counter.  The Core 2 Duo not only wraps together high performance that broke the stigma of the Pentium 4's performance troubles, it also features a significantly lower power envelope, giving Intel a hugely successful comeback.  AMD's solution has been their EE line of X2 processors, aimed at undercutting the performance/watt ratio of the competition. The EE in the name stands for Energy Efficicency and as you might guess, feature significantly reduced power draw figures.

AMD's Energy Efficient lineup was announced in May of this year as a preemptive counter against Core 2 Duo. Some single core EE variants are rated as low as 35 Watts while the dual core chips (available up to an X2 4800+ in EE guise) are rated for 65W maximum power draw. We will be taking a look at the X2 4200+ EE variant which falls under the 65W category and should offer equivalent performance to its standard-power draw counterpart.

In marketing terms, this lower rating (compared to the 89W of a standard X2 chip) looks quite good against the rating of the Core 2 Duo which is also 65 Watts. What should be noted here however is that this lower rating has nothing to do with architectural changes or tweaks and everything to do with how AMD bins their processors as they come off the fab. Similarly to how an X2 3800+ and an X2 4200+ could come off of the same wafer, these chips just happen to be able to run at lower Vcore settings than standard chips. AMD pull the chips that are stable at lower voltages at equivalent clocks and stamp a differently marked heatspreader then ship it off in adjusted packaging. For a quick refresh of the AM2 platform and its changes over previous Athlon 64 architecture, please take a look at our X2 5000+ review which highlights the main aspects of the newer chips.

While it may not be of as much technical interest knowing that these are essentially standard Athlon 64 chips, for those who run clusters of folding boxes or have a requirement for a low-draw server setup, these chips may fit the bill perfectly. The reduced power draw will definitely lead to long term savings for those who will be running their systems under load for extended periods of time. Also due to the lower draw, the heat output of these chips will be less than their normal-volted brothers which will be ideal for those running HTPC setups who are concerned about noisy fans and space constraints.

If you've been following the web discussions and the "buzz" on the net, the general consensus seems to be that these EE chips are not superb overclockers and while this trend may seem contrary to the performance of low-voltage variant chips of the past, we will be taking an in depth look at how this chip handles higher HT speeds and voltages.  Keep reading to see how well this chip handles for enthusiasts, overclockers, and for the other end of the spectrum for HTPC enthusiasts and low noise connoiseurs.

 

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