System Power Consumption

The four result values are as following:

• AMD Cool'n'Quiet / Intel SpeedStep: Windows 7 with Aero off, sitting at the desktop (1920x1080 32-bit) all windows closed, drivers installed. Processors have their power saving technology enabled, left in idle until power draw is stable.
• Idle: Windows 7 with Aero off, sitting at the desktop (1920x1080 32-bit) all windows closed, drivers installed. Processors have their power saving technology disabled, left in idle until power draw is stable.
• Load: Prime95 is used to increase load on all available cores and measurements are taken when power draw is stable.

When first released, C'n'C and Speed Step were not so well accepted by desktop users because many bugs in performance and overclocking stability appeared when activated. But since then those technologies have greatly evolved. Today it is almost unthinkable to turn off Speed Step/C1E with Intel Core ix processors because you would automatically lose Turbo Boost benefits, and there is an increasing number of enthusiasts who overclock their processors and then push for additional MHz using Turbo Boost. So our measurements of Idle and Load CPU states will shift to those with power management features turned ON. Today idle power usage can have a noticeable impact on your electricity bill if you keep your computer on most of the day, and most people do just that. So a bad implementation of power management technologies is and will be considered a product flaw.

AMD did a good job with power consumption again. Adding two more cores, more features and more performance, but keeping the power consumption on same levels as Phenom II X4 series. It's still far away from Core i5 750, but considering the road AMD's K10.5 architecture went through to get to this, it's not bad at all.