Intel Core i7-4960X Ivy Bridge-E CPU Review

Name: Intel Core i7-4960X Extreme Edition Processor Review
Brand: Intel

by Marco Chiappetta — Tuesday, September 03, 2013, 03:00 AM EDT

Throughout all of our benchmarking and testing, we also 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

The Core i7-4960X ended up consuming somewhat less power than the six-core Core i7-3960X under both idle and load conditions, but considerably more than the quad-core Core i7-4770K. The Core i7-4960X's idle and load power was also somewhat higher than the AMD FX-8350, but considering the massive performance increases offered by the Core i7-4960X, using a bit more power is easily justified. It may use more power at peak, but the Core i7-4960X is more efficient with that power than AMD’s fastest desktop processors available today.

As we mentioned earlier, overclocking the Core i7-4960X can result in large increases in power consumption. To demonstrate this, we also monitored power consumption with the chip running at its stock configuration and while overclocked to 4.6GHz. As you can see, power consumption jumped up almost 150 watts with the chip overclocked to 4.6GHz.

Tags: Intel, core i7, CPU, processor, overclock, extreme, X79, socket 2011, Ivy Bridge E

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