Lower Core Voltage - 1.250 Volts
Thanks to the 45 nm process and the High-K Metal Gate technology, Intel was able to significantly lower Penryn's stock core voltage. Impressively, our QX9650 gets by on only 1.250 V.
Penryn only needs 1.250 V.
For reference, all previous Core 2 models based on the 65 nm process that we have at our disposal in the lab require 1.3125 V, or 5% more.
Even when we overclocking the CPU to 3.8 GHz, we still only had to increase the voltage to the level that the older 65 nm models operate at by default.
Thanks to the new gate material, the core voltage could be lowered to 1.250 V, significantly decreasing the CPU's thermal power dissipation.
