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.

The results we are seeing are certainly not the best results, but not the worst either considering Phenom II X6 1090T is the only processor with six physical cores. AMD has done a great job not to break any power requirement records, but they can't really be proud of it considering what the competition, mainly Core i7 800, has to offer.