AMD's Quad FX: Technically Quad Core
by Anand Lal Shimpi on November 30, 2006 1:16 PM EST- Posted in
- CPUs
Power Consumption
Power consumption of a Quad FX system is simply unreal for a desktop, as it should be because this is effectively a workstation platform with un-buffered memory. At idle our Quad FX test bed consumed nearly 400W, partially because we couldn't get Cool 'n Quiet running on the system, but also because the CPUs and motherboard simply draw an incredible amount of power. Update: We got Cool 'n Quiet working on the motherboard which reduced idle power significantly, down to within a few watts of the Kentsfield system. Load power was unchanged.
| CPU | Idle Power | Load Power | Performance per Watt (fps/watt) |
| AMD Athlon 64 FX-74 (3.0GHz x 4) | 217W | 456W | 17.7 |
| Intel Core 2 Extreme QX6700 (2.66GHz x 4) | 213W | 263W | 32.9 |
Looking at power consumption under full load, Cool 'n Quiet would have no chance to even make an impact as all cores are being utilized at full speed. Under load the Quad FX system pulled 456W on average, a full 73% more than our Kentsfield testbed.
If we look at performance per watt, the Quad FX loses big time. We specifically chose to look at our WME encoding test because the performance of the FX-74 and QX6700 is pretty close. What you're looking at here is the best case scenario for the Quad FX's performance per watt; in applications where it's significantly slower than Kentsfield the performance per watt will be even worse.
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JarredWalton - Friday, December 1, 2006 - link
Yay for speech recognition!indigenous = enthusiast
we are see = we are seeing
Scratch a couple "basically" from the last paragraph.
yyrkoon - Friday, December 1, 2006 - link
I though Gary was the "one" with the Texas "Twang" ;)laok - Thursday, November 30, 2006 - link
The current 4x4 does not look to be a mature system to me. Wait until 65nm 4x4 comes out and hopefully a better chipset will be available at that time. 65W x 2 is reasonable, 130W x2 is kinda too much.And I also want to know how 4x4 compares to dual dual-core opteron with the same frequence: performance, power consumption etc.
DigitalFreak - Thursday, November 30, 2006 - link
It's the same chip as the Opteron, with the memory controller changed to work with unbuffered memory.JarredWalton - Friday, December 1, 2006 - link
The first word of his subject is the best advice: WAIT! Even if the future might get better, does anyone want to spend $1000+ on what may or may not turn out to be the better platform? When the new CPUs are available, then we can evaluate and decide. Of course, once AMD launches their quad core processors, I'm almost certain that our advice will be that most people only need a single socket motherboard and CPU anyway -- if that. Many people still get by a single core CPU, and the number of people that actually need more than dual CPUs is very small, at least in the desktop workspace.DigitalFreak - Thursday, November 30, 2006 - link
This is the best AMD can do against Kentsfield? They get stomped on in every benchmark, cost more, and draw nearly twice as much power. No one in their right mind would buy this over a Core2Quad. Whomever came up with this product should be fired.The last time I laughed this hard at a CPU/platform launch was when Intel rolled out the P4 dual core CPUs, and at least they came out on time in some of the multimedia benchmarks.
For the record, my current system is running an Opteron 165, so I ain't no Intel fanboy.
photoguy99 - Friday, December 1, 2006 - link
You're right it's actually embarrasing isn't it?If AMD's next-gen architecture improves performance by 30% at same clock, which is huge, they still won't take the lead.
And it seems Intel is done sitting on their hands, they are working like hell to dominate again by the time K8L ramps up big.
People hate hearing this but think it's over for AMD.
And like you, for the record, my current system is an FX-60 so I'm also no Intel fanboy.
DigitalFreak - Thursday, November 30, 2006 - link
...came out on top...photoguy99 - Thursday, November 30, 2006 - link
Seriously, I'd like to know who is selling them...Furen - Thursday, November 30, 2006 - link
That such a badly engineered product was rushed out to reviewers just to have a paper launch. Did AMD believe that no one would make a big deal about the power draw? Or maybe it expected no one to even look at power draw. I was actually impressed by what AMD had accomplished with 4x4, after all, the 3.0GHz Quad FX parts were close to the QX6700, until I saw the insane power draw. Two loaded FX-62 systems (whole systems, mind you) draw about the same power as 4x4 does IDLE!