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Power Consumption – 21 Watts when Idle

01:20 - Wednesday 23 January 2008 by Bert Toepelt
Source: Tom's Hardware UK – Keywords: phenom, 9600, black, edition
Categories: Hardware

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Power Consumption – 21 Watts when Idle

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We measured the power consumption of the Phenom 9600 Black Edition on our Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DQ6 (rev. 1.0) with the current BIOS version F3. The measurements include the voltage regulation modules.

Unlike the engineering sample we used for testing during the Phenom’s launch, our retail sample had no problem whatsoever taking advantage of the Cool’n’Quiet 2 functionality.

In Windows Vista, the Phenom 9600 Black Edition reduced its clock speed from 2.30 GHz to 1151 MHz when idle, simultaneously lowering its core voltage to 1.05 V. The Phenom is also able to reduce its clock speed using quarter-step multipliers, explaining the odd frequency of 1151 MHz (200 MHz x 5.75). CPU-Z rounds the 5.75 multiplier off to 5.8.

Phenom 9600 BlackEdition

Our power consumption measurements for the Phenom 9600 BE are nothing short of frightening. Using Cool’n’Quiet in the new version 2, the CPU draws a full 27.58 Watts. Whether or not the CPU is able to deactivate some of the voltage regulation modules does not really have much of an impact anymore. We assume that this is a problem caused by the CPU.

When Cool’n’Quiet is deactivated, the idle power consumption rises to 61 Watts. The jump in power consumption at 2.70 GHz is a direct result of the core coltage increase from 1.250 V to 1.400 V.

Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DQ6

All measurements were taken on a Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DQ6 motherboard using BIOS version F3 (21.12.2007).


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Talkback
mi1ez 23/01/2008 03:09
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mi1ez

Oh dear...
This has certainly done them no more favours...

Therlian 23/01/2008 03:31
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Therlian

This is an embarrassment for AMD. It's actually worse that they released the Black Edition of this processor because it shows that even with all the tricks, AMD is currently not even posing as competition for Intel. I don't know what AMD will be able to do to keep going; it seems like no matter what they try they are still way behind Intel.

At least when Intel was beating AMD in performance in the early days of the P2, at least AMD was still a viable option because of their price/performance ratio.

I hope they come up with something though; I don't want Intel to be the only product and raise their prices.

darthpoik 24/01/2008 11:40
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darthpoik

Poor AMD. I liked you a lot but Intel are truly kicking your butts. Hopefully this is just a Rocky feint and they will be back with a vengence soon

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