As many of you know, I have a reputation for doing things with laptop processors which really shouldn’t be done; modding them to run in desktops I mean! I’m still running my Mobile P4M 2.0GHz on 1.15v with a fanless Arctic Cooling AC-FRZ-4 Freezer 4 (yes, only the PSU fan quietly shuffling air around) and haven’t felt the need to jump to the next generation of processor, not that I could justify the outlay anyway.
Having said that, I do like to keep an eye on what’s happening in the world of CPU’s just to see if there’s anything exciting on the horizon. Nowadays performance per watt is all the rage and AMD’s standard desktop line of processors does a pretty good job of running cool enough to run fanless while still kicking out great performance but what if you want to step up to dual core processing? You’ve got your work cut out for you trying to run the X2 fanless!
Intel’s Core Duo finally brings Pentium M power characteristics to the desktop with the advantage of two cores and there are a few standard retail motherboards out there you can run one with. The exciting news is that AMD has just released details of their new Turion 64 X2 processor and it wouldn’t surprise me if this manages to keep AMD ahead of the game on both pricing and performance per watt. The only down side is that while existing Turions work in the majority of standard s754 desktop motherboards, which can be picked up very cheaply since they’re used for Semprons, the new Turions use a 638 pin socket S1 and I’m not sure if there are any plans to release desktop motherboards with this socket. Let’s hope they do because that may be enough to make me take the plunge on another upgrade!
If you’re still looking the KINO-690S1 Mini-ITX Mainboard has a Socket S1 that can be used to slot in a 64 X2. A friend of mine used it in a home theater PC setup and it runs quieter-than-a-whisper.