Power Consumption and temperatures

Power Consumption

We show energy consumption based on the entire PC (motherboard / processor / graphics card / memory / SSD). This number depends and will vary per motherboard (added ICs / controllers / wifi / Bluetooth) and PSU (efficiency). Keep in mind that we measure the ENTIRE PC, not just the processor's power consumption. Your average PC can differ from our numbers if you add optical drives, HDDs, soundcards etc.  Also, do not rule out anything RGB these days; an RGB lit motherboard, Keyboard, Liquid cooler, and mouse these days can easily add 10 to 15 Watts of power consumption to that Wattage budget. 

We want to make it very clear that power consumption measurements will differ per PC and setup. Your attached components use power but your motherboard can also have additional ICs installed like an audio controller, 3rd party chips, network controllers, extra SATA controllers, extra USB controllers, and so on. These parts all consume power, so these results are a subjective indication. Next to that, we stress all CPU cores 100% and thus show peak power consumption. Unless you transcode video with the right software your average power consumption will be much lower.

Temperatures

We don't compare temperature data since we'd have to apply identical cooling to all platforms over and over. Furthermore, coolers (RPM) respond differently to TDP and variables set in your motherboard BIOS. As a result, we simply do a temperature stress test.

As far as we are concerned, LCS for the series 7000 processor will be mandatory. AMD has set its thermal margin at 95 degrees C before throttling occurs. Nothing bad will happen at these temps with the processor, but it certainly is uncomfortable to observe and yes that residual heat also needs to be dumped somewhere. We did not expect to see the same thermals throughout the entire Ryzen 7000 range. The 7600X however is 'OK'.

Above you can see the Corsair H100i RGB Elite (2022) we recently reviewed. This LCS is dubbed a performance cooler by us (not enthusiasts). You can see thermals are a notch better. One max per core multiplier is now 5.45 GHz. Long story short, a good performance LCS will help you achieve the best turbo boost results.