AMD Phenom II X6 1090T And 890FX Platform Review: Hello, Leo

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Power Consumption

At idle, the Phenom II X6 1090T results in slightly higher system power than the Phenom II X4 965. Under the load of Prime95, we also see somewhat higher energy usage numbers.

Compare those figures to Intel’s, though. Under load, the Phenom IIs generate comparable system power draw. But at idle, AMD’s Phenom II CPUs use quite a bit less.

Of course, these are snapshots at the top and bottom of each processor’s range. The more realistic measure of consumption comes from our exploration into Turbo CORE on page three, where we determined that, despite its additional complexity and Turbo CORE technology, the Phenom II X6 1090T only averages a few watts higher power use in a logged PCMark Vantage run.

Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini
Chris Angelini is an Editor Emeritus at Tom's Hardware US. He edits hardware reviews and covers high-profile CPU and GPU launches.
231 Comments Comment from the forums
  • theDARKW0LF
    Awesome, good thing I waited for this release, hello six cores (first post)!
    Reply
  • dwave
    My 4 core Core2Quad @ 2.83 is still working everything great, so I won't be upgrading. Nice to see the price for 6 cores is very reasonable though!
    Reply
  • This maaayy just be my "conspiracy theory" but please also test nvidia cards with the processors. Not flacking AMD or anything but there could possibly be optimizations and "reverse optimizations" for the processors.

    I just cant remember tom's last review that had an nvidia card with an AMD processor.
    Reply
  • theDARKW0LF
    Lol I was just into the hype at that last post, I didn't even start to read the review, now I think I'll just go back to the Phenom II X4, ah well lol
    Reply
  • Finally this article comes out. I've been waiting since the morning for this. Lol but anyway, good read.
    Reply
  • cangelini
    Got some GTX 480 numbers in there as well txt, and the results weren't much prettier.
    Reply
  • englandr753
    Being that I have seemed to changed my use of my pc more toward video editing than gaming I am definitely selling off my Q9550 and going with the AMD X6. I still game some but don't care to have the cutting edge video card atm so this is perfect for me. I'm buying from AMD for my next cpu! Way to go AMD! I still have another Q9550 system so don't think I'm an AMD fan boy but I do love it when AMD gives such a great value for such a great product. Everyone should...
    Reply
  • You know, AMD can make a 48core CPU, but if it performs worse than Intel's 4 core, than it does not matter that it costs only as much as Intel's 4 core.

    In this case, it does not perform better than i7-920, even though the 920 is a 4 core cpu (and no, no one really runs it at 2.66, everyone pushes it at least to 3, since it takes nothing to get it to that speed, and it right away outperforms AMD's 6 core, and has a much better memory throughput).
    Reply
  • englandr753
    Is the X6 1090T not oc'able at all? It would seem there should be some headroom for overclock to some degree. Starting out at 3.2g makes me think you should be able to get fairly close to 4.0.
    Reply
  • cangelini
    englandr753Is the X6 1090T not oc'able at all? It would seem there should be some headroom for overclock to some degree. Starting out at 3.2g makes me think you should be able to get fairly close to 4.0.
    I was able to hit 3.7 with Turbo CORE enabled fairly easily. It might go higher, but I'd argue this probably isn't as much of an overclocking chip as a 965 might be.
    Reply