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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  • Jeremiahx99 - Tuesday, February 16, 2010 - link

    biased? they where comparing stock vs stock how can u call that biased, and people is not stupid lol whats that mean?
  • BlueBlazer - Sunday, September 13, 2009 - link

    Clock to clock comparison with turbo off..

    http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=776&type=...">http://www.pcper.com/article.php?aid=776&type=...

    Phenom II 965 comes in last place, due to IPC differences which is why AMD had to release higher clocked (should I say "overclocked") Phenom II to compete against Core 2 and Core i5/i7 series.
  • MamiyaOtaru - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - link

    Why compare to a Phenom OCd by 600mhz? The Phenom doesn't do it automatically like the i7
  • ssj4Gogeta - Thursday, September 10, 2009 - link

    It's biased because Intel is giving you more features?? The whole point of comparison is to determine which is better. Next you'll say it's biased because it's comparing a Nehalem to a Phenom II.
  • ClownPuncher - Wednesday, September 9, 2009 - link

    "people is not stupid. "

    Nice
  • goinginstyle - Wednesday, September 9, 2009 - link

    Somebody ban this SnakeOil idiot.
  • Etern205 - Tuesday, September 8, 2009 - link

    NDA is lifted! Huzzah!!!
  • philosofool - Tuesday, September 8, 2009 - link

    Now all I need is for Newegg to get in on the act!
  • Casper42 - Wednesday, September 9, 2009 - link

    http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...">http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N8...
  • tcool93 - Tuesday, May 11, 2010 - link

    I'm posting this to an older review, but just wanted to make a comment. I noticed all the reviews that have the Q9650 included, compare it to the Phenom 965... which isn't a fair comparison at all, because the Phenom 965 is running at a considerably faster mhz than the Q9650 is. Plus the Q9650 can overclock much faster with no voltage increase. I would bet the Q9650 is faster than the Phenom 965 at the same clock speeds.

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