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Power Consumption At The FX-8370E's Stock Clock Rate

AMD FX-8370E Review: Pulling The Handbrake For More Efficiency
By , Arne Weigold

Test System And Measurement Methodology

Our German lab went the extra mile for drilling down into power consumption, cutting the braiding from our power supply's cables to give us the same measurement capabilities you've seen in our graphics card launch coverage. The readings are based on the four-channel HAMEG HMO 3054 oscilloscope.

We’ll first take a look at the power consumption, which we measured via the motherboard’s power connector and includes any losses due to the voltage regulators. Depending on load, these losses can reach eight percent. Because the ASRock motherboard AMD sent over doesn’t let us analyze the VR data, we weren’t able to factor out those losses, though. The FX-8370E’s actual power consumption is a bit lower than the values reported here.

Test System
System
AMD FX-8370E
be quiet! Dark Rock Pro Air Cooler
be quiet! Shadow Rock Slim Air Cooler
ASRock Fatal1ty 990FX Killer
16 GB Radeon DDR3-1866
Samsung 850 EVO 512 GB
be quiet! Dark Power Pro 1200 W
Microcool Banchetto 101
Methodology
No-contact current measurement at all rails
Voltage measurement
IR real-time monitoring
Equipment
1 x HAMEG HMO3054, 500 MHz Four-Channel Oscilloscope
4 x HAMEG HZO50 Current Probe
4 x HAMEG HZ355 (10:1 Probe, 500 MHz)
1 x HAMEG HMC8012 DSO
1 x Optris PI450 80 Hz Infrared Camera + PI Connect


Optris' PI450 is an infrared camera that was developed specifically for process monitoring. It supplies real-time thermal images at a rate of 80 Hz. The pictures are sent via USB to a separate system, where they can be recorded as video. The PI450’s thermal sensitivity is 40 mK, making it ideal for assessing small gradients.

We're also using be quiet! Dark Rock Pro. It’s a large dual-tower cooler with two fans that spin based on the CPU’s temperature. Even our highest overclock doesn’t pose a problem for it. As a result, the fans max out at 800 RPM, and our acoustic measurement equipment can’t pick it up. So, we're forgoing our usual noise level measurements.

Even after a lengthy test run, idle temperatures are extremely low. We start a new benchmark once the heat pipe cools down to 30 degrees Celsius.

Because we want to uncover the sweet spots for overclocking, voltage, and cooling, we’ll switch out the Dark Rock Pro CPU cooler for a less expensive model later, and then make our recommendation.

Here's another of the motherboard's shortcomings: a measurement of 75 degrees is way too high for a chipset at idle. We even measured well over 80 degrees Celsius on the chipset’s surface after running the motherboard inside of a case. That's enough to hurt your fingers, as I now know from experience.

AMD FX-8370E at 3.3 GHz

Core Voltage

The core voltage, provided by the VRM, plays a prominent role in determining power consumption and how much waste heat is produced. A real 1.17 V reading is a bit lower than the BIOS setting of 1.1850 V. Interestingly, the value fluctuates a lot when the BIOS is set to regulate voltage automatically, whereas it doesn't if you switch the firmware to manual control.

The Turbo Core clock rate falls all the way to the base frequency during our stress test.

Power Consumption

At idle, we’re looking at 17 W. Under a taxing load, that number jumps to 75 W measured at the rail supplying the CPU. This is both unexpected and pleasant. It's the sort of power figure we've always wanted to see from a top-end AMD processor. After all, once the voltage regulator losses are calculated, we should be looking at right around 65 to 68 W. Sure, Intel's CPUs are lower still (and a great many faster, too), but not as far as you’d think.

Temperatures

A lower-power processor is bound to demonstrate better thermal performance. And indeed, the temperatures we're reporting are good at idle and under load. We could have probably used AMD's stock cooler without creating a bunch of annoying noise.

Heat pipes on the cooler we did use only warm up to 34 degrees Celsius. A 40-degree core temperature is also impressive.

Looking at the power consumption-to-performance ratio, we have a really interesting eight-core CPU that’s definitively better than what AMD offered previously in the FX family. Even though a lower clock rate results in a performance hit, the FX-8370E is exactly what we were hoping to see from AMD to begin with.

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Top Comments
  • 10 Hide
    husker , September 22, 2014 1:48 PM
    Article quote: "However, it's probable that AMD sent us a sample chosen specifically for this purpose. Plus, there is almost certainly variance from one -8370E to the next. And so it's hard to know if the FX-8370E is actually better."

    If you pre-suppose that your sample is tainted why bother to do the testing and the article in the first place. Perhaps this is a case where your should purchase the product of the shelf in order to better serve your readers.
Other Comments
  • 3 Hide
    MeteorsRaining , September 22, 2014 12:26 PM
    The price point is a deal breaker. Its a fairly good CPU for AMD builders, but can't give it the tag of budget builder, you get i5 non-K in that price. Its moving into a higher (cost wise) territory with weak arsenal.
  • -3 Hide
    The_Doc , September 22, 2014 12:45 PM
    How to start a benchmark review? But of course, let's show how powerful is AMD in single core!

    I think we all get it Vishera isn't exactly wonderful in single core operations, but:

    A) I have yet to see any software which requires A LOT of single core power, it's 2014, if something is still single-core, it probably doesn't need all that power or il old enough to make even Vishera good at it.

    B) You are comparing a 2012 architecture to a 4790K, It's like comparing Pentium 4 to a Pentium G3258.

  • 10 Hide
    husker , September 22, 2014 1:48 PM
    Article quote: "However, it's probable that AMD sent us a sample chosen specifically for this purpose. Plus, there is almost certainly variance from one -8370E to the next. And so it's hard to know if the FX-8370E is actually better."

    If you pre-suppose that your sample is tainted why bother to do the testing and the article in the first place. Perhaps this is a case where your should purchase the product of the shelf in order to better serve your readers.
  • 6 Hide
    1991ATServerTower , September 22, 2014 2:21 PM
    I would have liked to see a power consumption chart of the following cpus all clocked to 3.8GHz.

    8150, 8320, 8230e, 8350, 8370e.

    That would demonstrate the improvements of Vishera over Bulldozer, as well as any improvements offered by binning.
  • 5 Hide
    oxxfatelostxxo , September 22, 2014 2:54 PM
    "If you pre-suppose that your sample is tainted why bother to do the testing and the article in the first place. Perhaps this is a case where your should purchase the product of the shelf in order to better serve your readers."

    1) almost every vendor does this, cpus, graphics, ect..
    2) the chip they received is exactly what you get when you buy it off the shelf, however every cpu/gpu ect varies by a small amount. The vendors simply make sure that review sites get the top end of that group. In all honesty we are probably talking 3% performance from the majority at most.
  • 1 Hide
    ShadyHamster , September 22, 2014 3:52 PM
    Any chance the older 8320/50 could be tested at the same voltages and clock speeds to better compare power usage?
    My 8320 will happily run 3.5/3.6ghz @ 1.15v as long as turbo core is disabled.
  • 1 Hide
    m32 , September 22, 2014 4:49 PM
    I've had a few 8350's that needed 1.41-1.45v for 4.5. These E models needs less voltage compared to the originals when dealing with "moderate" overclocks.

    I will probably get the 8320E for my office computer during Black Friday. $140 is the price right now but I prefer $125 or less for an AMD CPU.
  • 1 Hide
    Chris Droste , September 22, 2014 4:50 PM
    for all we know a nice, process-refined 8350 is the exact same chip under the hood, they just clocked it down and gave it a new name. someone wake me when AMD starts to innovate desktop CPUs again.
  • 1 Hide
    hmp_goose , September 22, 2014 4:58 PM
    While it's nice to see a sweet spot staked out for the OC, and really nice to hear about how much smaller the heatsink can be, what I'd like to see if the E OCs cooler/ less wattage then the two non-Es. I like to think a 8350 is better then a 8320 if you care about power consumption at all, and want to see if the trend continues with the 8370 & 8370E …
  • 2 Hide
    RedJaron , September 22, 2014 6:10 PM
    Quote:
    The price point is a deal breaker. Its a fairly good CPU for AMD builders, but can't give it the tag of budget builder, you get i5 non-K in that price. Its moving into a higher (cost wise) territory with weak arsenal.
    Precisely, which goes right along with what Igor said:

    Quote:
    Yes 4.5 GHz and higher is possible, but at a certain point you're going to spend too much on a beefy motherboard and high-end cooler, negating the value of overclocking outright.

    Far too many people forget the whole cost of OCing a chip. Sure, a 4.5 83XX can slightly beat a stock i5, but at what cost? The 6300 is a far more compelling CPU for tweakers. If you're lucky on a few sales, you can get the chip, cooler, and mboard for the same $200. And as pointed out here, unless you're pairing it with a top-shelf GPU, you won't see any gaming benefits with a pricier platform.


    Quote:
    B) You are comparing a 2012 architecture to a 4790K, It's like comparing Pentium 4 to a Pentium G3258.

    This is AMD's latest offering. The Haswell refresh is Intel's latest offering. Whatever the products' pedigrees, why shouldn't the two latest SKUs be compared?
  • 5 Hide
    jas340 , September 22, 2014 6:51 PM
    What I got from the article is that the i3-4330 is one fine gaming CPU.
    AMD is embarrassing itself with these "new" releases. It is quite sad. I wonder how many more years they will milk "Piledriver"?
  • 1 Hide
    Amdlova , September 22, 2014 7:58 PM
    the cpu price is not the problem, but a good motherboard for the cpu is too high. I don't want a crap north chipset with crap south chipset. AND i see the 990fx With fear. Amd need Update the chipset...
  • 2 Hide
    Keenan Johnson , September 22, 2014 8:19 PM
    The only issue I see with this CPU is the price of it. I really would not personally see a reason to go with this over the old 8320 or even the 8320E, which are both priced very well for their performance and will overclock similarly to this one, although the non E variants seem to run hotter. At stock, the 8370E will likely match the 8320, but costs too much more. The TDP number to me only tells me how stong a cooler I need WHEN I overclock. Bottom line is, what does it cost and how fast is it for that cost. At $200, I'd have a hard time not forking out the extra $40 for the I5 4670K. Again, not due to it's TDP rating, but what it can do for the money I spend.
  • 2 Hide
    rdc85 , September 22, 2014 8:31 PM
    Quote:
    the cpu price is not the problem, but a good motherboard for the cpu is too high. I don't want a crap north chipset with crap south chipset. AND i see the 990fx With fear. Amd need Update the chipset...


    agreed, this cpu need new (limited) mobo to operate.. this making it's a minus point...

    anyways we need to keep advocating good balanced built more often..
    I see lot's of people keep waste money in one (op) part to only be limited by another parts in his system...
    (the true potential of the system is nowhere to be seen)
  • 2 Hide
    Keenan Johnson , September 22, 2014 8:52 PM
    Quote:
    Quote:
    the cpu price is not the problem, but a good motherboard for the cpu is too high. I don't want a crap north chipset with crap south chipset. AND i see the 990fx With fear. Amd need Update the chipset...


    agreed, this cpu need new (limited) mobo to operate.. this making it's a minus point...

    anyways we need to keep advocating good balanced built more often..
    I see lot's of people keep waste money in one (op) part to only be limited by another parts in his system...
    (the true potential of the system is nowhere to be seen)


    Agreed, too many people, and some that I personally know will throw a high end K chip in their rig and match it with a $120 GPU while not wanting to overclock said CPU, and then get mad because they can't max out new titles. Recently, a friend's brand new i7 rig was out ran by my overclocked FX rig in a bet on the Metro LL benchmark due to his GTX 650 GPU vs my heavily overclocked R9 280X:lol:  He honestly thought he would win, and he was not happy with his purchase after that. It took awhile to explain to him (He's very new to the PC gaming world) that his prebuilt "gaming" rig was hideously imbalanced. It happens all too often, the new to PC guys who buy some of those prebuilts get ripped pretty hard sometimes:( 
  • 3 Hide
    rolli59 , September 22, 2014 8:56 PM
    Biggest benefit is for all the people that want to upgrade to 8 core but have previously bought boards that do have low power limits as most of the budget AM3+ boards do.
  • 2 Hide
    rmpumper , September 22, 2014 10:00 PM
    I will get downvoted for this comment but I have to say this: I find it funny that AMD fans are always claiming that power consumption is irrelevant while at the same time AMD are doing everything they can to improve efficiency.
  • 0 Hide
    Shin-san , September 22, 2014 11:28 PM
    Something tells me that Bulldozer might have been to get into game consoles. It's an architecture that's easy for people to learn, but hard to extract full power from.

    However, it seems that AMD won't be making any new CPU architectures until 2016. I'm doubtful that AMD will manage to push the clock any further in the near-future, though 5 GHz is possible. A 200W part will make your PC a space heater.

    For the 2016 build, there's a chance that AMD may be revamping the CPU drastically, but there's also the chance that AMD will just give up. The third alternative is that they will release a CPU update for game consoles.

    I'm also doubtful about the hybrid x86/ARM chip they want to make. In theory, it's sound, but I'm thinking of the complications from programming the thing, plus the potential for bugs.
  • 1 Hide
    vaughn2k , September 23, 2014 2:38 AM
    I want AMD to keep their CPU line-up alive. Therefore, an alternative to Intel's high priced processor. If not, Intel will shoot-up theirs... but please AMD make a better CPU soon. bring HSA soon! And bring back the glorious days, the Athlon was!
  • 0 Hide
    tomc100 , September 23, 2014 3:02 AM
    AMD needs to hire better engineers. This is just embarrassing.
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