What is Turion Processor? (Explained)

What is Turion Processor?

Turion refers to the brand name given by AMD to the low-power, x86-64 mobile processors. In simple words, it refers to the AMD processor family.

These CPUs typically have cores with different code names, and there are different versions of them with different features.

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Turion signifies the brand name of low-power AMD processors with x86-64 architecture.
• These processors can be used in different devices that consume low power.
• AMD Turion processors come in different versions and each version comes with different features.
• The cores of the processors belonging to this family come with different codenames and features, and they were released at different times from March 2005 to May 2010.
• The Turion processors are quite efficient, especially the Turion 64 and Turion 64 X2/Ultra processors, which can compete with Intel mobile processors.

Understanding Turion Processor

Turion is the brand name of the AMD mobile processors with x86-64 architecture.

These processors consume less power during operation and therefore are good enough to use in low-power devices.

The features and functionalities of these processors, however, differ according to their versions.

For example, the design aspects of the Turion 64 and Turion 64 X2/Ultra processors, in particular, allow them to compete with the Intel mobile processors.

Features

Over the years, AMD has designed different versions of Turion processors, each of them having different features.

Turion 64

The earliest Turion 64 processors are recognized by the following features and support offered:

• Socket 754
• 512 KiB or 1024 KiB of Level 2 cache
• A 64-bit on-chip, single channel, DDR-400 memory controller
• A HyperTransport bus of 800 MHz
• Battery saving features such as PowerNow!

However, the later Richmond models came with Socket S1 and a dual-channel DDR2 controller.

Turion 64 X2

These 64-bit dual-core mobile processors are recognized by the following features:

• Socket S1
• DDR2 memory
• AMD Virtualization Technology
• Greater power-saving features.

Turion X2 Ultra

This is exclusively designed for the mobile platform and is based on the Athlon 64 architecture. The features and particular architectural enhancements of these processors are:

• Lower power consumption
• Dual cores fabricated on 65 nm technology
• 300 mm SOI wafers
• DDR2-800 SO-DIMM support
• A DRAM prefetcher
• A mobile-enhanced Northbridge
• Three voltage planes, two for each core and one for Northbridge
• Several Phase Locked Loops (PLL)
• Deep sleep state C3
• Deeper sleep state C4
• HyperTransport 3.0
• Dynamic scaling of HT link
• Several on-die thermal sensors
• Socket S1 with different pinout
• Minimally modified cores

Turion II Ultra

These dual-core mobile processors are recognized by the following features:

• 45 nm fabrication process
• 2 MB total L2 cache
• HyperTransport at 3.6 GT/s
• A 128-bit FPU
• A TDP of 35 watts

Turion II

This Turion variant is the same as the Turion II Ultra, with the only difference being the L2 cache, which is only 1 MB (512 KB per core). The cores of these processors also operate at a lower clock speed, ranging between 2.2 GHz and 2.6 GHz.

Code Names

The AMD Turion processor family comes with different code names.

They have different cores built on Silicon on Insulator (SOI) technology and manufacturing processes.

Released at different times, the codenames, number of cores and features are as follows.

The Turion processors, codenamed Lancaster, were released in August 2005 with a single 90 nm core and the following features:

• Stepping E5
• L1 cache of 64 KiB for data and 64 KiB for instructions
• Full speed L2 cache of 512KiB or 1024 KiB
• MMX, Enhanced 3DNow! PowerNow! NX Bit, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, and AMD 64 support
• Socket 754
• HyperTransport at 800 MHz
• VCore
• Maximum TDP of 25 watts to 35 watts
• Clock rate range of 1600 MHz to 2400 MHz

Turion processors, codenamed Richmond, were released in September 2006 with a single 90 nm core that supported the same features as Lancaster plus the following:

• AMD-V
• Maximum TDP of 31 watts
• Clock rate range of 2000 MHz to 2200 MHz

Turion processors, codenamed Taylor and Trinidad, were released on May 17, 2006 with dual 90 nm cores and the following features:

• AMD 64 core
• Stepping F2
• L1 cache of 64 KiB for data and 64 KiB for instructions per core
• Full speed L2 cache of 256 KiB for Taylor and 512 KiB for Trinidad per core
• Memory controller
• Dual channel memory support for DDR2 up to 667 MHz
• MMX, Extended 3DNow! PowerNow! NX bit, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, and AMD 64 support
• Socket S1
• HyperTransport at 800 MHz
• Maximum TDP of 31 watts to 35 watts
• Clock rate of 1600 MHz to 2200 MHz

Turion processors, codenamed Tyler, were released in 2007 with dual 65 nm cores and the following features:

• AMD 64 core
• Stepping G1, G2
• L1 cache of 64 KiB for data and 64 KiB for instructions per core
• Full speed L2 cache of 256 KiB per core for all Athlon and Turion TL-50 and 512 KiB per core for all others
• Memory controller
• Dual channel memory support for DDR2 up to 667 MHz
• 100 MHz granularity for Dynamic P-state Transitions
• MMX, Extended 3DNow! PowerNow! NX Bit, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, AMD 64, and AMD-V support
• Socket S1
• HyperTransport at 800 MHz
• Maximum TDP of 31 watts to 35 watts
• Clock rate of 1700 MHz to 2400 MHz

Turion processors, codenamed Lion, were released on June 4, 2008 with dual 65 nm cores and the following features:

• AMD 64 core
• Stepping B1
• L1 cache of 64 KiB for data and 64 KiB for instructions per core
• Full speed L2 cache of 512 KiB per core or 1 MiB per core
• Memory controller
• Dual channel memory support for DDR2 up to 800 MHz
• MMX, Extended 3DNow! PowerNow! NX Bit, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, AMD 64, and AMD-V support
• Socket S1
• HyperTransport at 1800 MHz or at 2200 MHz
• Maximum TDP of 32 watts to 35 watts
• Clock rate of 2000 MHz to 2200 MHz for RM-7x with 1 MiB L2 cache and clock rate of 2100 MHz to 2500 MHz for ZM-8x with 2 MiB L2 cache

Turion processors, codenamed Caspian, were released in September 2009 with dual 45 nm cores and the following features:

• Stars core
• Full speed L2 cache of 512 KiB per core for Turion II, Athlon II and Sempron II
• Full speed L2 cache of 1 MiB per core for Turion II Ultra
• Memory controller
• Dual channel memory support for DDR2 up to 800 MHz
• MMX, Extended 3DNow! PowerNow!, NX bit, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSE4a, AMD 64, and AMD-V support
• Socket S1g3
• HyperTransport at 1800 MHz
• Maximum TDP of 25 watts to 35 watts

Turion processors, codenamed Champlain, were released in May 2010 with dual 45 nm cores and the following features:

• AMD K10 microarchitecture
• MMX, Enhanced 3DNow! NX bit, AMD 64, SSE, SSE2, SSE3, SSE4a, Cool’n’Quiet, and AMD-V support
• Memory support for DDR3 SDRAM, DDR3L SDRAM
• Socket S1g4
• HyperTransport at 1800 MHz
• FPU or Floating Point Unit width of 128 bits
• L2 cache of 1 MiB per core
• Maximum TDP of 25 watts to 35 watts

Conclusion

The Turion processors are quite good CPUs to use in low-power devices.

Especially, the Turion 64 and Turion 64 X2/Ultra CPUs come with the features that make them a worthy competitor to the mobile processors from the house of Intel, whether it is Intel Core, Intel Pentium, or Intel Core 2 processors.