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Measuring DDR4 Power Consumption

Intel Core i7-5960X, -5930K, And -5820K CPU Review: Haswell-E Rises
By , Igor Wallossek

DDR4-2133: 32 GB Crucial Value RAM

Let's kick this off with DDR4's lowest data rate, 2133 MT/s, with no overclock whatsoever applied. There are no heat spreaders on our Crucial modules. Voltage is set at 1.2 V, representing significant savings compared to DDR3 and even DDR3L.Ideally, that'll translate into less heat and lower power consumption.

At idle, we measure 32 degrees Celsius at the hottest point. Not bad.

Under load, the temperatures hover around 37 degrees Celsius, which is decent as well.

Power Consumption: Crucial DDR4-2133
32 GB (Four Modules)
11.85 W
16 GB (Two Modules)
5.94 W
8 GB (One Module)
2.98 W
4 GB (Rated)
1.49 W

DDR4-2666: 16 GB G.Skill Ripjaws

A higher clock rate and red heat spreaders are added to G.Skill's take on DDR4, but the modules are still rated for 1.2 V. How do those changes affect temperatures and power consumption?

At idle, we measure approximately 28 degrees Celsius after 20 minutes. Despite a more aggressive data rate, that's a reduction of four degrees!

Under load, the temperature we measure lands around 33 degrees. Again, that's about four degrees Celsius less.

Power Consumption: G.Skill Ripjaws DDR4-2666
16 GB (Four Modules)
6.14 W
8 GB (Two Modules)
3.06 W
4 GB (One Module)
1.52 W

DDR4-2800: 16 GB Corsair Vengeance

The data rate increases again, and the heat spreader is now black. Still, Corsair maintains the standard's 1.2 V setting. Unfortunately, the XMP profile for the kit's peak performance level changes the BCLK setting from 100 to 131 MHz, which directly affects the processor's frequency as well.

We measure approximately 28 degrees Celsius at idle after 20 minutes, which is the same four-degree improvement over Crucial's baseline.

The temperature remains at approximately 32 degrees Celsius under load, which represents another slight reduction (despite the highest data rate in our test).

The power consumption we measure from Corsair's DDR4-2800 kit is slightly less than the 2666 MT/s modules as well. In reality, there's basically no difference between the two kits.

Power Consumption: Corsair Vengeance DDR4-2800
16 GB (Four Modules)
6.09 W
8 GB (Two Modules)
3.03 W
4 GB (One Module)
1.51 W

DDR4 memory offers significantly-reduced power consumption, even at higher data rates. Depending on the kit you end up buying, consumption is down between 25 to 40 percent compared to DDR3.

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  • 1 Hide
    wireframed , 29 August 2014 18:24
    Well, that's a bit of a mixed bag. The review was nice, though.

    Personally, the 3DS and After Effects benchmarks were of most interest, since they are what I spend most of the CPU time on. (3DS in particular, right now I'm logging dozens of CPU hours a day on 3DS alone). It's pretty clear that unless the platform costs of Haswell-E are much higher than IB-E, going with the old won't make sense. The 5930k beats the 4960X. which is at least 50% more expensive.

    I've been waiting forever for an upgrade to my i7 930 based workstation, and I didn't feel like jumping on an IB-E a couple months before a brand-new HEDT platform is released.

    I had hoped Haswell-E would be a bit more impressive, but OTOH, investing in a DDR4 platform now might be a good idea, given my workstations typically have 3-4 years in them. At the very least, a drop-in upgrade to Broadwell-E would be nice to have as an option.

    Now to see how big a pounding I'll take in Denmark for X99/DDR4/Haswell-E... :o 
  • 0 Hide
    haider95 , 30 August 2014 17:56
    sweepstakes only for US users?
  • 0 Hide
    Robi_g , 30 August 2014 22:06
    Text on the competition PC says EVGA motherboard, but the picture has an ASrock one.
  • -1 Hide
    Robi_g , 30 August 2014 22:06
    Text on the competition PC says EVGA motherboard, but the picture has an ASrock one.
  • -1 Hide
    Robi_g , 30 August 2014 22:07
    Text on the competition PC says EVGA motherboard, but the picture has an ASrock one.
  • -1 Hide
    BigBadBeef , 2 September 2014 05:45
    I am an enthusiast and even I say "NO" to this marketet prototype. I will not participate as Intel's guinea pig.
  • 0 Hide
    LePhuronn , 4 September 2014 14:59
    Although I agree with the logic behind the "smart choice" at the end of this article, in the real world the PCI-E lane count for gaming is a moot point. X99 is NOT a gaming platform. It is a workstation and productivity platform. Regardless of how much you hobble your CPU, you're still paying £300 for the motherboard and £400 for comparatively paultry amounts of RAM, so the price of overall Haswell-E adoption is very high.

    Therefore anybody who's going to load up on GPUs enough to worry about PCI-E lanes will have sufficient money to drop in a 5960X on principle. Anybody who's adopting X99 for productivity purposes will not skimp on core count and also go 5960X, especially considering they're likely to go at least 32GB RAM and therefore shelling out a lot of money. Those producing on CUDA cards may not even go X99 at all because 1150 Haswell has more than enough power to run the software. Folders and CUDA Miners similarly will want all GPUs running at full tilt so will likely invest in the 5960X to get all the PCI-E lanes.

    So really, the only "smart choice" is 5960X or don't go X99 at all.
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