Power consumption and temperatures

Power consumption and temperatures

The new processors are a bit of a redesign with accompanying die-shrink and as a result they are quite energy friendly processors, Clarkdale does an especially splendid job. A processor like the Core i5 655K (not overclocked) for example consumes only 73 Watts, and that is with all cores stressed. Next to that, clever power management allows the internal voltage and processor multiplier to drop, core independent.

Core i5 655K processorThe 655K processor launched today has a TDP of 73W and that's quite an improvement and it shows this during our measurements:

As you can see, these are really respectable numbers. Mind you that this initially was done with an H55 motherboard, an SSD, optical drive, 4GB memory. Later on we tested on the P55 for the overclock with a Radeon HD 5870 installed, consuming some more power (add 20 Watts in idle). Still it's not a lot. For the best power consumption make sure you have BIOS features like EIST and C1E enabled and within Windows set your performance mode to balanced (allows the processor to clock down). We measured with the overclock at 4200 Mhz / 1.35 Volts.

Temperatures are very good as well. With an air cooler you can expect temps like below:

Now I need to mention that these temperatures are managed with a cheapo heatpipe based cooler -- you'll reach roughly 60 degrees C / 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Try to imagine what happens when you slap proper cooling on there, the overclocking potential will become tremendous.

Of course, results will vary with different motherboards and cooling solutions. But as a baseline the temperatures definitely are promising, especially with overclocking in mind.

Core i7 875K processor
With the Core i7 875K processor the dynamic changes a little as you have two more (four total) CPU cores. The processor is launched with a TDP of 95W.

As you can see, these remain respectable numbers. IDLE wattages actually went down with a new BIOS revision of the P55 board we are using. We test with a Radeon HD 5870 installed as here we went straight for the P55 board, consuming some more power. Again, for the best power consumption make sure you have BIOS features like EIST and C1E enabled and within Windows set your performance mode to balanced (allows the processor to clock down). Overclocked and especially with added voltage the power consumption quickly rises. We measured with the overclock at 4200 Mhz / 1.375 Volts.

Temperatures are very good as well. With an air cooler you can expect temps like below:

Now I again want to mention that these temperatures are managed with a cheapo heatpipe based cooler -- you'll reach roughly 60 degrees C / 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Try to imagine what happens when you slap proper cooling on there, the overclocking potential will become tremendous.

And again, of course results will vary with different motherboards and cooling solutions. But as a baseline the temperatures definitely are promising, especially with overclocking in mind.