A 4.1 GHz Dual Core at $130 - Can it be True?

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Power Consumption Levels Top 200 W, Continued

If you look at the idle mode behaviour of this test system when compared to other processors, the power consumption doesn't look bad at all. Compared to a Pentium D 950 running at 3.4 GHz, for example, this system consumes only 40 W more when overclocked to 4.1 GHz. At heavy load, power consumption for the Pentium D 950 climbs to only 101 W. When you take into account the 700 MHz higher clock rate and the low cost of the CPU, power costs for the Pentium D 805 don't seem so bad.

To determine if we needed a new power supply for our test system, we also loaded the CPU in tandem with the graphics card. This produced a measurement of total power consumption of 512 watts at the wall socket! This might sound like a lot, but also requires that you factor in the efficiency rating of the power supply itself. Most PSUs have efficiency ratings of somewhere between 75 and 80 percent, which means that the components in our test system are consuming 384 W of power. Thus, those who have a 500 Watt power supply in their PCs can overclock this CPU without a second thought.

Those who may be concerned about the voltage regulators on their motherboards should purchase a board with an 8-phase regulator. We recommend the Asus workstation motherboard P5WD2-WS Premium for that reason (as we write this story, it's not yet available in North America, but it should be some time this summer).

With an 8-phase regulator, the Asus P5WD2-WS motherboard is designed to meet high power demand.

Tom's Hardware News Team
Tom's Hardware News Team

Tom's Hardware's dedicated news crew consists of both freelancers and staff with decades of experience reporting on the latest developments in CPUs, GPUs, super computing, Raspberry Pis and more.

5 Comments Comment from the forums
  • Tnias
    I am quite interested in your post regarding the D 805. Considering that it is now available for around $60.00 (03/20/09), it still sounds like a steal. We just upgraded our Adobe CS2 software to the new CS4 Master Suite, which caused the need for a graphics card upgrade. We have an nVidia GeForce GTX 260, but haven't installed it because our computer is a HP Media Center PCm7350n computers each with a 2.8 GHz CPU on a ASUS P5LP-LE mobo. Your article seemed to imply that there is software available that might adjust the clock from inside windows and we are wondering if it can on that mobo or if we will have to get a different mobo. If so, we are wondering what might be our most cost effective but stable options. We are certainly going to need a new power supply for the GTX 260, which requires 525 Watts. We are looking at just putting in PC Power & Cooling’s, Silencer 610 EPS12V power supplyand letting it go at that, but we are also thinking about upgrading the CPU and mobo if necessary.

    Of course, we would like to keep the cost down as much as possible.

    We have no idea where the best bang for the buck will be. For us a stable system is more important than blazing speed. Thus, the HP's worked fine for what we originally got them for; it’s just that our graphics and video production software are forcing upgrades in speed and power.

    The D850 chip sounds incredible and the power supply we already have to get will handle overclocking that chip. It even sounds like that chip will work in the existing mobo if we can find a way to change the clock speed from inside windows instead of from the BIOS. HP BIOS does not allow adjusting the clock speed in the BIOS but can't BIOS just be changed as well; isn't it just an EPROM?

    Anyway, even if we opt for changing out the mobo for another case compatible Asus mobo, we still have to answer the question of which board and chip combination will give us the most stable service for the least cost.

    Any ideas that might help us plan the most appropriate upgrade and the least cost?
    Reply
  • amnotanoobie
    TniasAny ideas that might help us plan the most appropriate upgrade and the least cost?
    With the price of components that you need to make this run stable, and the amount of electricity that this would use, a cheap Core 2 and motherboard and DDR2 memory would cost you less in the long run.

    Example:

    Intel Pentium Dual Core E5200
    Kingston DDR2 2x2GB 800MHz
    Gigabyte G31M-ES2C

    This should cost less than $200.
    Reply
  • salh
    Sweg.
    Reply
  • smeezekitty
    4 year old thread!
    Reply
  • salh
    11206355 said:
    4 year old thread!

    no hate pl0x
    Reply