New AMD chips run greener

AMDs recently announced APU, the AMD E350 is said to offer a 40% percent reduction in carbon emissions. This is a according to a recent study which compared the APU to previous generations.
AMD has announced its AMD E-350 APU which demonstrated a significant reduction in the overall product “carbon footprint” as compared to a previous generation products featuring an AMD Athlon Neo II Dual core processor and an ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5430 graphics processor.

The environmental benefits were evidenced by a recently completed carbon footprint study that examined the production and use of the new APU, and found a reduction of up to 40 percent in total carbon emissions over the life of the APU.

The study calculated the total greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, or carbon footprint, of the systems from the silicon fabrication through the use phases of the product life cycle. The findings showed that the AMD Fusion APU reference system generated 40.2kg CO2e of GHG emissions compared to 67.4kg CO2e of GHG emissions for the previous generation products – a 40.3% reduction in overall GHG emissions associated with the APU product over its estimated lifetime.

While the study showed some reduction in carbon footprint at the manufacturing stage, the largest carbon benefits for the APU stem from lower energy consumption when the product is used.

The lower carbon footprint of the AMD E-350 APU, as compared to the test system, largely results from the integration of the computing and graphics processors onto a single piece of silicon. This eliminates the chip-to-chip linkage between CPU and GPU that can add latency to memory operations and reduce power.

“AMD’s commitment to reduce our impact on the environment spans our operations, our behaviours and the products we design,” said Nigel Dessau, Chief Marketing Officer, AMD. “AMD Fusion APUs are a remarkable example of how a company’s business interests and environmental interests can align and result in innovative products that deliver incredible experiences, value, and significant energy and cost savings for consumers and businesses alike.”

The study compared systems with the following specifications: the AMD Fusion APU system featured the AMD E-350 APU (18 watts Thermal Design Power), which is a single-chip processor that combines a dual-core CPU with a DirectX11 discrete-class graphics processing unit (GPU); while the reference system featured a dual-core AMD Athlon Neo II CPU and a discrete ATI Mobility Radeon HD 5430 GPU card.
AMD Fusion Accelerated Processing Units