25x20 Energy Efficiency Initiative

25 times more energy efficiency by 2020

Our goal is to deliver at least 25 times more energy efficiency by the year 2020 with our Accelerated Processing Unit (APU), working with our customers to reduce the power consumption and environmental footprint of technology while relentlessly improving performance.

Developing energy efficient processors has long been a design focus at AMD. In fact, AMD improved the typical use energy efficiency of our mobile processorsby 10x from 2009 to 2014.^1,2 And our latest mobile processor – the 6th Generation A-Series APU (codenamed “Carrizo”) – delivers energy efficiency ahead of the projected trend line for achieving our 25x20 goal.

50 percent drop in greenhouse gas emissions for users

Our commitment to energy efficiency gains, sustainability, and lower operating costs continues to deliver breakthrough results for consumers and enterprises. AMD’s carbon footprint study shows that using the 6th Generation A-Series APU, codenamed “Carrizo,” can result in a 50 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions compared to the previous generation APU, while more than doubling battery life and performance per watt.^3-5

Read the press release

Resources

Heterogeneous computing

The AMD APU – which combines central (serial) processing and graphics (parallel) processing onto a single chip – is the primary innovation driving this goal. Our APU technology is designed to harness the processing capabilities of heterogeneous design to do more computing with less energy by enabling the seamless shift of computing workloads to the optimal processing component – all of which helps improve performance and use less power. It achieves this through optimizing connections between discrete chips and reduces computing cycles by treating the CPU and GPU as peers.

Based on typical-use Energy Efficiency as defined by taking the ratio of compute capability as measured by common performance measures such as SpecIntRate®, PassMark and PCMark® divided by typical energy use as defined by metrics such as ETEC (Typical Energy Consumption for notebook computers) as specified in Energy Star Program Requirements Rev 6.0 10/201
“Tigris” relative compute capability (1.0) of baseline divided by relative energy efficiency (1.0.) of baseline = 1X. “Kaveri” relative compute capability (4.5) of baseline divided by relative energy efficiency (0.45) of baseline = 10X.
“Comparative Carbon Footprint Assessment of the Manufacturing and Use Phases of Two Generations of AMD Accelerated Processing Units” (2015) http://www.amd.com/Documents/carbon-footprint-study.pdf
Typical-use Energy Efficiency as defined by taking the ratio of compute capability as measured by common performance measures such as SpecIntRate, PassMark and PCMark, divided by typical energy use as defined by ETEC (Typical Energy Consumption for notebook computers) as specified in Energy Star Program Requirements Rev 6.0 10/2013. “Kaveri” relative compute capability (4.5) of baseline divided by relative energy efficiency (0.45) of baseline = 10X. “Carrizo” relative compute capability (5.8) of baseline divided by relative energy efficiency (0.23) of baseline = 25.2X (which is 2.4x that of “Kaveri”)
Testing conducted by AMD Performance labs on optimized AMD reference systems. PC manufacturers may vary configuration yielding different results. Basemark CL performance is used to represent CPU performance; the AMD FX-8800p (35W) scored 86 while the AMD A10-8700P processor scored 58. CZN-23Battery testing by AMD Performance labs using reference platforms based on an AMD 6th generation Processor featuring an AMD FX-8800P platform, 2x4GB DDR3-1600, 256GB SSD, Windows 8.1, Driver 15.100 lasting 10.2 hrs The comparison system consisted of an AMD FX 7600P with 2x4GB DDR3-1600, 256GB SSD, Windows 8.1, 14.200.1004 drivers. Jan 15, 2015 lasting 7.1 hrs. Testing done with a 50 kw/hr battery with Varibright mode set to aggressive, and airplane mode enabled, with MobileMark12. CZN-14