__NOTOC__ AMD PowerNow! is

AMD Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. (AMD) is an American multinational semiconductor company based in Santa Clara, California, that develops computer processors and related technologies for business and consumer markets. While it initially manufactur ...

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 conserve ...

and power saving technology for laptop processors. The CPU's

clock speed In computing, the clock rate or clock speed typically refers to the frequency at which the clock generator of a processor can generate pulses, which are used to synchronize the operations of its components, and is used as an indicator of the pro ...

and

VCore The CPU core voltage (''VCORE'') is the power supply voltage supplied to the central processing unit, CPU (which is a digital circuit), Graphics processing unit, GPU, or other device containing a processing core. The amount of Power_(physics), powe ...

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

noise Noise is unwanted sound considered unpleasant, loud or disruptive to hearing. From a physics standpoint, there is no distinction between noise and desired sound, as both are vibrations through a medium, such as air or water. The difference aris ...

. The lifetime of the CPU is also extended because of reduced electromigration, 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. It is the world's largest semiconductor chip manufacturer by revenue, and is one of the developers of the x86 seri ...

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 microprocessors that allow the clock speed of the processor to be dyna ...

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 processor line, and was the first processor which supported the AMD64 instruction set architecture (known generically as x86-64 or AMD64). It was released on April 22, 2003, with the ''Sledg ...

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 The Sempron is a name used for AMD's low-end CPUs, replacing the Duron processor. The name was introduced in 2004, and processors with this name continued to be available for the FM2/FM2+ socket in 2015. Features overview CPU features table Des ...

* Turion 64 and X2 *

Athlon II Athlon II is a family of AMD multi-core 45 nm central processing units, which is aimed at the budget to mid-range market and is a complementary product lineup to the Phenom II. Features The Athlon II series is based on the AMD K10 architect ...

* AMD Accelerated Processing Unit

References

External links

AMD PowerNow!
AMD technologies Computer hardware tuning {{compu-hardware-stub X86 architecture

Processors supporting PowerNow!

See also

References

External links