AMD Phenom II X4: 45nm Benchmarked

By Frank Voelkel, Bert Toepelt
published

Energy Consumption At Idle

CPU Energy Consumption At Idle

We measured the energy consumption of this processor and compared it with other models:

System-Level Energy Consumption At Idle

Compared to its 65 nm Phenom, AMD was able to reduce energy needs by between 10 and 17 watts--close to the notorious power-friendly Phenom X4 9350 from the 65 nm product family. Intel’s Core i7 still weighs in at substantially higher values than any of the AMD processors, but the Core 2 Quad Q6600 consumes 19 watts more at idle. This may make a more meaningful basis for comparison, as this CPU costs about the same as the entry-level AMD Phenom II. In the end, energy consumption comes from an entire PC system, and is not solely a function of the CPU it contains. Together, all of the components determine how much energy will be consumed, at idle and otherwise.

The 790GX consumes significantly less power than the Intel X48 and X38 chipsets, giving AMD an advantage. At idle, the system with a Phenom II consumes only 113 watts. The Intel Core i7 920 system requires 136 watts, while the Core i7 965 Extreme system takes in 145 watts. Consider also that an idle system with a Core 2 Quad 6600 requires 3 more watts than a Phenom II system.

Components Used For Energy Consumption Measurement:

Swipe to scroll horizontally
SystemPhenom IICore 2Core i7
ChipsetAMD 790GXX48X58
RAMDDR2-1066DDR3-1333DDR3-1333
Graphics CardNvidia GeForce GTX 280Nvidia GeForce GTX280Nvidia GeForce GTX280
Hard Disk2 x WD 3200AAKS2x WD 3200AAKS2x WD 3200AAKS
BD-ROMPioneer BDC-202BKPioneer BDC-202BKPioneer BDC-202BK
Sound CardCreative X-Fi Xtreme GamerCreative X-Fi Xtreme GamerCreative X-Fi Xtreme Gamer
Frank Voelkel
164 Comments Comment from the forums
  • one-shot
    YAY!, The day has come! Haven't read it yet. I am excited to see what it brings!
    Reply
  • firedogevan
    why focus on the q6600... wouldn't the q9550 or 9650 be a more accurate comparison given their respective locations in the product lineup?
    Reply
  • dechy
    Yeah, the price comparison table should of included a Q9550, which costs same as i7 920 but with the lower mobo/ram combo price.

    Ends up being the same price as the AMD bundle, but with a good more performance... there goes the whole "AMD price/performance" aspect of this chip.
    Reply
  • one-shot
    Great review. Maybe some overclocking later? There were some pretty high claims about its overclocking potential. I'll wait for AM3 before I retire my E6750.
    Reply
  • cangelini
    Coming up soon one-shot--I was working on that one =)
    Reply
  • V3NOM
    who cares about performance/watt? PRICE/PERFORMANCE is the big deal
    Reply
  • The Q9xxx series would trump the PhenomII in all the categories listed above. THG, it was downright *criminal* to have not included the Yorkfield chips in your performance per dollar and performance per watt analysis.
    Reply
  • nashville
    hey bert/tom's:
    good write up: thought id comment on i7 watts:
    "we measured the power consumption directly from the 12 volt rail that supplied the CPU", i read somewhere the only i7 core logic gets power from 12v rail, the uncore/cache part somewhere else. if this is true, you going to do another measurements?
    Reply
  • kirvinb
    I'm so happy to see Intel has some competetion. While these new processors are not mind blowing, they offer some decent performance at the price given. I am sure this will lower the price of the q9400 and q9550, which is exactly what I want to see. Maybe even the i7s price will lower and maybe we will be back in the good days..where intel and amd flipped sides of the powerhouse like every 6 months..!! Good Write Up..
    Reply
  • jj463rd
    On the forums someone mentioned "why did they use DDR2-800 RAM when DDR2-1066 would give better performance for the Phenom II".Wouldn't this skew the benchmarks by a little bit (perhaps 2 to 3%)?
    Reply