__NOTOC__ AMD PowerNow! is

AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California and maintains significant operations in Austin, Texas. AMD is a hardware and fabless company that de ...

dynamic frequency scaling Dynamic frequency scaling (also known as CPU throttling) is a power management technique in computer architecture whereby the frequency of a microprocessor can be automatically adjusted "on the fly" depending on the actual needs, to conserv ...

and power saving technology for

laptop A laptop computer or notebook computer, also known as a laptop or notebook, is a small, portable personal computer (PC). Laptops typically have a Clamshell design, clamshell form factor (design), form factor with a flat-panel computer scree ...

processors. The CPU's

clock speed Clock rate or clock speed in computing typically refers to the frequency at which the clock generator of a processor can generate pulses used to synchronize the operations of its components. It is used as an indicator of the processor's ...

and VCore are automatically decreased when the computer is under low load or idle, to save battery power, reduce heat and

noise Noise is sound, chiefly unwanted, unintentional, or harmful sound considered unpleasant, loud, or disruptive to mental or hearing faculties. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrat ...

. The lifetime of the CPU is also extended because of reduced

electromigration Electromigration is the transport of material caused by the gradual movement of the ions in a Conductor (material), conductor due to the momentum transfer between conducting electrons and diffusing metal atoms. The effect is important in applicat ...

, which varies exponentially with temperature. AMD.com – TechDocs The technology is a concept similar to

Intel Intel Corporation is an American multinational corporation and technology company headquartered in Santa Clara, California, and Delaware General Corporation Law, incorporated in Delaware. Intel designs, manufactures, and sells computer compo ...

SpeedStep Enhanced SpeedStep is a series of dynamic frequency scaling technologies (codenamed Geyserville and including SpeedStep, SpeedStep II, and SpeedStep III) built into some Intel's microprocessors that allow the clock speed of the processor to be ...

technology. The adaptation of PowerNow! for AMD's desktop CPUs is called

Cool'n'Quiet AMD Cool'n'Quiet is a CPU dynamic frequency scaling and power saving technology introduced by AMD with its Athlon XP processor line. It works by reducing the processor's clock rate and voltage when the processor is idle. The aim of this techn ...

. Newer

Opteron Opteron is AMD's x86 former server and workstation Microprocessor, processor line, and was the first processor which supported the AMD64 instruction set architecture (known generically as x86-64). It was released on April 22, 2003, with the ''Sl ...

s also use an adaptation of PowerNow! called ''Optimized Power Management.'' AMD has supplied and supported drivers for its PowerNow! technology that work on Windows 98, ME, NT, and 2000.

Processors supporting PowerNow!

* K6-2+ * K6-III+ * Athlon XP-M - some models. * Mobile Athlon 64 * Mobile Sempron *

Turion 64 AMD Turion is the brand name AMD applies to its x86-64 low-power consumption mobile processors codenamed ''K8L''. The Turion 64 and Turion 64 X2/Ultra processors compete with Intel's mobile processors, initially the '' Pentium M'' and the In ...

and X2 * Athlon II *

AMD Accelerated Processing Unit AMD Accelerated Processing Unit (APU), formerly known as Fusion, is a series of 64-bit microprocessors from Advanced Micro Devices (AMD), combining a general-purpose AMD64 central processing unit ( CPU) and 3D integrated graphics processing un ...

References

External links

AMD PowerNow!
AMD technologies Computer hardware tuning {{compu-hardware-stub X86 architecture Laptops Computer-related introductions in 2000

Processors supporting PowerNow!

See also

References

External links