Power Consumption Levels Top 200 W
We performed our performance measurements across a range of CPU clock rates. The test system we used incorporated the following components:
- Intel Pentium D 805
- Tagan i-Xeye 480 W PSU
- Asus P5WD2-E Premium
- OCZ DDR2-800 (2x 512 MB)
- 2x Western Digital WD160
- GeForce 7800 GTX
- Gigabyte DVD-Rom 16x
When the Pentium D 805 is overclocked, the power consumption for an idle system (Windows desktop only) climbs to 88 W. The substantial increase in input voltage necessary for stable operation is a significant contributor to this increase.
With a heavy load (100% utilization) on both CPU cores, the difference between standard clock rates and overclocking to 4.1 GHz is pretty dramatic. The resulting boost in performance comes at the cost of 216 W of actual power consumed!