Power Consumption

If you'll remember back to last year's Nehalem coverage I made a point to mention that the Nehalem architecture, thanks to its PCU and power gate transistors, was the most power efficient of the high end options. The lower the TDP, the more important power efficiency is and thus it's no surprise to see Lynnfield truly impress when it comes to power consumption:

Idle Power Consumption

At idle the Core i5 and Core i7 870 use less power than any other processor we've ever tested. Note that these idle power figures include an idling GeForce GTX 280. With a lower power graphics card, you could easily get to idle power consumption around 60W. Once we start seeing on-package GPUs, total system power consumption should drop even further.

Load Power Consumption - x264 HD Bench Pass 2

Under load the Core i5 and Core i7 870 continue to impress. They both draw less power than a Q6600 or a Q9650, all the while outperforming the two. Power consumption is also noticeably lower than Bloomfield.

These things are fast and smart with power. Just wait until Nehalem goes below 65W...

Gaming Performance Overclocking: Great When Overvolted, Otherwise...
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  • moronsworld - Saturday, September 26, 2009 - link

    To all you morons that don't understand economics. amd gone = intel monopoly = intel processors overpriced. Plain and simple. Take an economy class or 2, you morons. AMD is a good company, just that Intel's processors are better at the moment. God too many morons in this world that are allowed to vote. We live in a society ruled by morons.
  • TA152H - Tuesday, September 8, 2009 - link

    Actually, you don't really know what you're talking about.

    On-die memory controllers are nothing new. The Nexgen 586 had it in the mid-90s. Intel just knew when to add it, and when not to. That's why the Core 2 blows AMD processors away, while being significantly smaller.

    AMD instruction schedulers were behind Intel's Pentium Pro from 1995 until the Phenom II came out. It still doesn't have full memory disambiguation like Intel introduced with the Core 2, but at least the memory scheduling is now on par with the Pentium Pro. I'm not sure that something they like brought up though.

    64-bit processing is also old hat, and really was just an extension of the 386 protected mode anyway, with a lot of Microsoft input.

    The K8 wasn't really much of an architecture, it was a K7 with a memory controller, and a couple of extra stages for better IPC, that most idiots thought was for higher clock speeds. It was a failure, and was what put AMD in the situation where they are now. It was, generally, better than the Netburst, but then, is that such a high bar to get over? The problem was, they actually believed it was a good processor until the Core 2 relieved them of that misapprehension. The reality is, Intel's mobile chips were always better than the K8, but the damn fools made us buy the Pentium 4 for the desktop. To AMD's credit, at least they never made anything horrible like that, but, really, their primary claim to fame was based more on the terrible Intel design than a great processor of their own, and the fact Intel wouldn't let us use the mobile chips for desktops.
  • JonnyDough - Tuesday, September 8, 2009 - link

    Please work on your English before replying to me in the future. Thanks.
  • Aenslead - Tuesday, September 8, 2009 - link

    So you *must* have perfect english to reply in these forums?

    Gosh, never saw that in the Terms and Conditions agreement when I created my account. So that means that anybody (or a nobody, like you) have a say on what other races and people from other countries that don't speak English as their first language, that LIKE READING and giving their opinion in a FREE MOFO OPEN FORUM, must do to post here?

    You and your kind are pathetic.
  • JonnyDough - Tuesday, September 8, 2009 - link

    I didn't say anything about having perfect English. You sir, are a troll. I just wanted his reply to be coherent. This is the ENGLISH version of DailyTech, there are other language versions. His post didn't even make sense, and yours was just trolling.
  • ginbong - Wednesday, September 9, 2009 - link

    I understood what he said, maybe you need to sharpen up your analytical skills and stop being a dlckhead on this hardware analysis website.

    Better yet, how about taking the money you have saved for your next PC upgrade and enrolling into Grade 1 again.
  • dastruch - Tuesday, September 8, 2009 - link

    and you don't get it too... pathetic
  • jigglywiggly - Tuesday, September 8, 2009 - link

    This is a hot cpu, except I want 6 cores + HT. 32nm... quads ahh yeah. I still don't like the i5, because I don't want two sockets on one brand at the same time. It just limits options, I am only looking at i7/i9, because I bought this qx6700 in 2006 for 1000$. It was a good purchase, because q6600s were a while away and they were 500$. I got my qx6700 to 3.85ghz, now it's at 3.5ghz stable. Curse you electromigration! Also curse you economy! I don't have enough money for a 6core+6HT 1000$ cpu again.
  • JonnyDough - Tuesday, September 8, 2009 - link

    *Laughs at the moron...

    Go buy a Ferrari and then wreck it and sell it for parts. That's essentially a larger scale version of what you did.
  • Lifted - Tuesday, September 8, 2009 - link

    Huh? Buying a $1000 CPU is like wrecking a Ferrari?

    "Laughs at the moron"

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