Power Consumption – 21 Watts when Idle
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.
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.
All measurements were taken on a Gigabyte GA-MA790FX-DQ6 motherboard using BIOS version F3 (21.12.2007).
- Previous page Slower than Intel’s Core 2 Quad Q6600
- Next page Power Consumption – 150 Watts when...
- Phenom vs. Athlon Core Scaling Compared
- Intel Power Consumption Then and Now
- The Phenom vs. Athlon Core Shootout
- Ultimate Budget Overclocking Box - A 3.5 GHz Core 2 System with a...
- Yorkfield at 5 GHz with Water Cooling?
- Finding The World's Best Hardware Prices: Shop Globally
- Tom's Hardware Interviews AMD – The Phenom Phenomenon
- Update: Core 2 Extreme QX9770 at 3.2 GHz
- AMD Phenom - The Spider Weaves its Web
- Sibling Rivalry - Intel E6750 and Q6600 Overclocking Duel
-
AMD Phenom 9600 Black Edition 95W
-
BLACK
-
5000 black edition
-
9950 Black Edition
-
AMD 5000 Black Edition
-
gtx 260 black edition
-
XFX GTX280 xxx edition
-
Club 3D HD4870 Overclocked Edition
-
HD 4870 Sonic Dual Edition
-
professional over home edition
-
sims 2 deluxe edition cd code
-
unreadable text windows home edition
-
INNOVISION Geforce 9800GTX FREEZER EDITION
-
OCZ Reaper HPC Edition 4GB 2
-
EVGA GeForce GTX 260 Superclocked Edition
-
black screen


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