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.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
283 Comments
View All Comments
iwodo - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
1. Transcoding @ 100fps is not uber fast. x264 ultrafast setting is even faster then that. So i hope there are further improvement or potentials in the Quick Sync that we haven't yet discovered.2. OpenCL - No mention of OpenCL? At all?
3. I would think Intel GD has done very well this time around. And there are possibly 20 - 30% more performance to squeeze out given how Intel Gfx Drivers tend to be VERY POOR.
cactusdog - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
Thanks for the excellent run down of Sandy Bridge. As i have a x58 system i'm going to skip it and see what happens in Q4 . X58 has been a good platform and lasted longer than most others in recent years.xxxxxl - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
I've thought it over...and i don't believe that H67 only support GPU overclocking.Like what others said, buy a "K" cpu to get HD3000 graphic and cannot overclock...and on the other side, those with P67 buy unlocked "K" CPU get HD3000 but cannot use...then what's the point of making HD3000 graphics?
strikeback03 - Tuesday, January 4, 2011 - link
As they pointed out, with the Z series motherboard you can have both. That said, it does seem stupid that Intel would launch with those official guidelines, and in these comments others are saying some H67 motherboards are allowing the CPU multiplier to be changed.rs2 - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
As tempting is this chip looks, my 3.8 GHz Core 2 Quad is still more CPU than I can really use most of the time. I wonder if we're reaching the point where improved compute performance is not really necessary for mainstream and even most enthusiast users.In any case, the upcoming 6-core/12-thread variant sounds interesting. Maybe I'll upgrade to that if Intel doesn't assign it to the $999 price point.
romanovskis - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
same here. For gaming or multimedia use, core2quad (mine at 4GHz) is still enough, and probably will be enough for 1-2 years. Best value/money is still in GPU upgrades.iwodo - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
Beat Value / Money is SSD...cgeorgescu - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
Best Value/Money is Beer, everybody knows that. Not 6-core but 6-pack.karlostomy - Thursday, January 6, 2011 - link
WIN ^^^agr8man - Monday, January 3, 2011 - link
a great review from you guys, and imo, the i5 2500k is really a steal.