Low Power and Energy-Efficient CPUs from Intel and AMD

Since its launch - or even earlier than that - the Core2 Duo processors have been hailed to be the non-surplussed leaders in CPU performance. As the claim to fame usually goes, the glory rubs off on every single member of the family, so that by the end of the day it really doesn't matter whether it is an E6700 or an X6800 or maybe just an E6300. All of them deliver spectacular performance not only with respect to the instructions per clock cycle but also in terms of instructions per Watt. At least that's the storyline.

At the same time, AMD is back to some sort of wall flower existence, since only being Number One is what attracts the spotlights. However,the reality is a bit more convoluted; starting with the Venice core, AMD has delivered outstanding performance per Watt. With the introduction of the Dual Core Athlon 64's, the focus has shifted once again towards performance rather than efficiency but there was no doubt that at least the potential for the next big thing in power savings was there. Along with that necessarily goes the issue of thermal management of CPUs.