AMD FX-8350 Vishera 8-Core CPU Review
Total System Power Consumption
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.
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The new Piledriver-based AMD FX-8350 is clearly more efficient than the previous-generation FX-8150. Not only did the FX-8350 offer clearly better performance than its predecessor, but it did so with lower idle and peak power consumption. While it's an improvement over the previous-gen FX though, the new 8350 still uses much more power than the higher performing, Ivy Bridge-based Core i7-3770K. Intel's current processors are simply in another league in terms of power efficiency due to their architectural and manufacturing advantages.
We also monitored the FX-8350's power consumption while we had the chip overclocked. As you can see, boosting the chip up to 4.7GHz (with a model +.03v bump in voltage) resulted in a huge increase in power consumption, to the tune of almost 100 watts. Although there is some headroom left in the chips, AMD is obviously pushing the envelope with the FX-8350's default boost clock of 4.2GHz. A less than 10% increase in frequency and a tiny bump in voltage resulted in a 41% increase in power consumption.
