AMD Phenom II X4 810 and X3 720 BE Processors

Name: AMD Phenom II X4 810 and X3 720 BE Processors - Page 9
Brand: AMD

by Marco Chiappetta — Monday, February 09, 2009, 12:01 AM EDT

We'd like to cover a few final data points before bringing this article to a close. Throughout all of our benchmarking and testing, we monitored how much power our test systems consumed using a power meter. Our goal was to give you all an idea as to how much power each configuration used while idling and while under a heavy workload. Please keep in mind that we were testing total system power consumption at the outlet here, not just the power being drawn by the processors alone.

Total System Power Consumption

Tested at the Outlet

These new 45nm Phenom II processors are quite power friendly. While idling, they consumed the least amount of power of the bunch when paired to DDR2 memory. And the same holds true while under load. When using DDR3 memory, the new AM3 processors still consumed relatively little power, but we suspect the Asus motherboard we used didn't completely exploit the C1E power state available in the new Phenoms with its current BIOS, hence the slightly higher power usage.

Tags: AMD, Phenom, AM3, Black Edition

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com