The Sandy Bridge Review: Intel Core i7-2600K, i5-2500K and Core i3-2100 Tested
by Anand Lal Shimpi on January 3, 2011 12:01 AM ESTPower Consumption
Power consumption is very low thanks to core power gating and Intel's 32nm process. Also, when the integrated GPU is not in use it is completely power gated as to not waste any power either. The end result is lower power consumption than virtually any other platform out there under load.
I also measured power at the ATX12V connector to give you an idea of what actual CPU power consumption is like (excluding the motherboard, PSU loss, etc...):
| Processor | Idle | Load (Cinebench R11.5) |
| Intel Core i7 2600K @ 4.4GHz | 5W | 111W |
| Intel Core i7 2600K (3.4GHz) | 5W | 86W |
| AMD Phenom II X4 975 BE (3.6GHz) | 14W | 96W |
| AMD Phenom II X6 1100T (3.3GHz) | 20W | 109W |
| Intel Core i5 661 (3.33GHz) | 4W | 33W |
| Intel Core i7 880 (3.06GHz) | 3W | 106W |
Idle power is a strength of Intel's as the cores are fully power gated when idle resulting in these great single digit power levels. Under load, there's actually not too much difference between an i7 2600K and a 3.6GHz Phenom II (only 10W). There's obviously a big difference in performance however (7.45 vs. 4.23 for the Phenom II in Cinebench R11.5), thus giving Intel better performance per watt. The fact that AMD is able to add two more cores at only a 13W load and 300MHz frequency penalty is pretty impressive as well.
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britchie - Wednesday, December 26, 2012 - link
I was wondering how Intel Quick Sync might impact PC Based Security Systems/CCTV like those from Avermedia or Geovision. For the longest time Aver advocated a dedicated graphics card but now says HD2000/3000 CPU is OK.I read about limited software support in the article and guess that Aver does not yet take advantage Quick Sync. However, I had to RMA a NV6480 just for compatibility with a Sandy Bridge CPU (even using a dedicated GPU - ATI 5000 for multiple monitors) and wondered why.
Anyone know why Sandy Bridge might cause compatibility issues with DVR/NVR Cards and what advantages Quick Sync could bring to the IP Security Camera market if top companies like Geovision or Avermedia developed software for it?
realflow100 - Sunday, September 6, 2015 - link
Heh. I can run DiRT 4 at 30FPS+ ABSOLUTELY playable even on a bit higher settingsWith Intel HD Graphics (Bay Trail architecture)
Even GTA 5 plays somewhat reasonably when you disable shadows and run at 640x480 :D
IdBuRnS - Wednesday, October 11, 2017 - link
Who would have thought that 7 years later the 2600k is still relevant and competitive?