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PowerNow! is speed throttling and power saving technology of AMD's processors used in laptop
Laptop

A laptop is a personal computer designed for mobile computing small enough to sit on one's lap. A laptop includes most of the Computer hardware of a typical desktop computer, including a Computer display, a computer keyboard, a pointing device as well as a battery, into a single small and light unit....
s. The CPU
Central processing unit

A central processing unit is an electronic circuit that can execute computer programs. This broad definition can easily be applied to many early computers that existed long before the term "CPU" ever came into widespread usage....
's clock speed and VCore are automatically decreased when the computer is under low load or idle, to save battery
Battery (electricity)

In electronics, a battery or voltaic cell is a combination of one or more electrochemical cell Galvanic cells which store chemical energy that can be converted into electric potential energy, creating electricity....
 power, reduce heat and noise
Quiet PC

A quiet PC is a personal computer that makes little noise. Common uses for quiet PCs include video editing, sound mixing, home servers, and home theater PCs....
. The lifetime of the CPU is also extended because of reduced electromigration
Electromigration

Electromigration is the transport of material caused by the gradual movement of the ions in a Conductor due to the momentum transfer between conducting electrons and diffusing metal atoms....
, which varies exponentially with temperature.

The technology is a concept similar to Intel's SpeedStep
SpeedStep

SpeedStep is a trademark for a series of dynamic frequency scaling technologies built into some Intel microprocessors that allow the clock speed of the processor to be dynamically changed by software....
 technology.






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PowerNow! is speed throttling and power saving technology of AMD's processors used in laptop
Laptop

A laptop is a personal computer designed for mobile computing small enough to sit on one's lap. A laptop includes most of the Computer hardware of a typical desktop computer, including a Computer display, a computer keyboard, a pointing device as well as a battery, into a single small and light unit....
s. The CPU
Central processing unit

A central processing unit is an electronic circuit that can execute computer programs. This broad definition can easily be applied to many early computers that existed long before the term "CPU" ever came into widespread usage....
's clock speed and VCore are automatically decreased when the computer is under low load or idle, to save battery
Battery (electricity)

In electronics, a battery or voltaic cell is a combination of one or more electrochemical cell Galvanic cells which store chemical energy that can be converted into electric potential energy, creating electricity....
 power, reduce heat and noise
Quiet PC

A quiet PC is a personal computer that makes little noise. Common uses for quiet PCs include video editing, sound mixing, home servers, and home theater PCs....
. The lifetime of the CPU is also extended because of reduced electromigration
Electromigration

Electromigration is the transport of material caused by the gradual movement of the ions in a Conductor due to the momentum transfer between conducting electrons and diffusing metal atoms....
, which varies exponentially with temperature.

The technology is a concept similar to Intel's SpeedStep
SpeedStep

SpeedStep is a trademark for a series of dynamic frequency scaling technologies built into some Intel microprocessors that allow the clock speed of the processor to be dynamically changed by software....
 technology. The adaptation of PowerNow! for AMD's desktop CPUs is called Cool'n'Quiet
Cool'n'Quiet

Cool'n'Quiet is a central processing unit CPU throttling and power saving technology introduced by AMD with their Athlon 64 processor line. It works by reducing the processor's clock rate and voltage when the processor is idle....
. Newer Opteron
Opteron

The Opteron is Advanced Micro Devices's x86 server Central processing unit line, and was the first processor to implement the AMD64 instruction set architecture ....
s also use an adaptation of PowerNow! called Optimized Power Management.

Processors supporting PowerNow!

  • K6-2+
    AMD K6-2

    The K6-2 was an x86 microprocessor introduced by Advanced Micro Devices on May 28, 1998, and available in speeds ranging from 266 to 550 Megahertz....
  • K6-III+
    AMD K6-III

    The K6-III, code-named "Sharptooth", was an x86 microprocessor manufactured by AMD, which was the last and perhaps fastest of all Socket 7 desktop processors....
  • Athlon XP-M
    Athlon

    Athlon is the brand name applied to a series of different x86 Central processing unit designed and manufactured by Advanced Micro Devices. The original Athlon was the first seventh-generation x86 processor and, in a first, retained the initial performance lead it had over Intel Corporation's competing processors for a significant period of t...
     - some models.
  • Mobile Athlon 64
    Athlon 64

    The Athlon 64 is an eighth-generation, AMD64-architecture microprocessor produced by AMD, released on September 23, 2003. It is the third processor to bear the name Athlon, and the immediate successor to the Athlon XP....
  • Mobile Sempron
    Sempron

    Sempron has been the marketing name used by AMD for several different entry level desktop CPUs, using several different technologies and CPU socket formats....
  • Turion 64
    Turion 64

    Turion 64 is the brand name AMD applies to its 64-bit low-consumption Central Processing Unit codenamed K8L. The Turion 64 and Turion 64 X2 processors compete with Intel's mobile processors, initially the Pentium M and currently the Intel Core and Intel Core 2 processors....
     and X2
    Turion 64 X2

    Turion 64 X2 is AMD's 64-bit Multi-core notebook processor, intended to compete with Intel's Intel Core and Intel Core 2 CPUs. The Turion 64 X2 was launched on May 17, 2006, after several delays....


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