Core i7-980X: Dialing In Efficiency With The Right Overclock

Total And Average Power, Efficiency Workload Runtime

The total power used for our efficiency workload, consisting of all the benchmarks shown on the results page, is lowest when the processor runs at 3.86 GHz without voltage tweaking.

Average power may be higher on the overclocked system, but since the workload terminates quicker, the system can return to an idle state much faster—and idle requires the least power.

We calculate efficiency as runtime per power used (performance per watt). Obviously, runtime scales with clock speed.

The power diagram allows us to visualize performance differences and check how much power each configuration required.