How Much Power Does Low-Voltage DDR3 Memory Really Save?
Kingston’s HyperX LoVo-series DDR3 memory allows users to reduce voltage to 1.35 V or 1.25 V in order to save power and allegedly decrease system temperature. We test the eco-friendly modules to find out if it really makes sense to run undervolted memory.
Test System Details
Processor: AMD Phenom II X6 1090T
We used a test system that we’ve already had up and running for a few other articles. The test system is based on AMD’s latest six-core Phenom II X6 1090T processor. This processor runs at 3.2 GHz and implements AMD’s new Turbo CORE feature, which introduces dynamic clock speed adjustment similar to Intel’s Turbo Boost.
Motherboard: Asus Crosshair IV Formula
The Crosshair IV by Asus is based on the AMD 890FX chipset. The platform isn't meant to be a power-saver, but thanks to the chipset, it turns out to be relatively efficient.
| System Hardware | |
|---|---|
| Hardware | Details |
| Performance Benchmarks | |
| Motherboard (Socket AMD3) | Asus Crosshair IV Formula (Rev. 1.0), Chipset: AMD 890FX, BIOS: 0701 (04/02/2010) |
| CPU AMD | AMD Phenom II X6 1090T (45 nm, 3.2 GHz, 6 x 512 KB L2 and 6 MB L3 Cache, TDP 125 W, Rev. C3) |
| RAM DDR3 | 2 x 2 GB DDR3-1333 (Kingston KHX1600C9D3LK2/4GX 9-9-9-27) |
| Graphics | Sapphire Radeon HD 5850, GPU: Cypress (725 MHz), Graphics RAM: 1024 MB GDDR5 (2000 MHz), Stream Processors: 1440 |
| Hard Drive | Western Digital VelociRaptor, 300GB (WD3000HLFS), 10000 RPM, SATA 3Gb/s, 16 MB Cache |
| Power Supply | Enermax Pro 82+, EPR425AWT |
| System Software & Drivers | |
| Operating System | Windows 7 Ultimate x64 Updated on 2010-03-03 |
| Drivers and Settings | |
| Intel Chipset Drivers | Chipset Installation Utility Ver. 9.1.1.1025 |
| Intel Storage Drivers | Matrix Storage Drivers Ver. 8.9.0.1023 |
Keep in mind that all of our components can be considered upper-mainstream hardware typical of a gaming PC or powerful multimedia machine. The components we used aren’t "green" or low-power per se, but they're reasonable. We also made sure to use a suitably efficient power supply.
In the end, we recommend starting to optimize for minimum power consumption. Intel platforms and processors will give you around 5 W to 10 W less idle power. If your apps can get away with it, a less powerful graphics card or even integrated graphics will decrease idle power by another 15 W or more. And an expensive 80 PLUS Silver or Gold power supply will reduce power consumption by a few percent, as well.
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