X-bit labs

Intel V8 Eight-Core Platform Preview (page 15)

Category: CPU

by Ilya Gavrichenkov

[ 05/18/2007 | 06:57 PM ]

Power Consumption

We are used to the fact that systems with 65nm processors on Core micro-architecture are known for their relatively low power consumption. However, looks like Intel V8 doesn’t fall under this rule. Xeon X5365 processors boast typical heat dissipation of 150W. It is higher than the TDP of Athlon 64 FX used in the AMD Quad FX platform and even higher than that of older Intel processors with NetBurst micro-architecture. Moreover, FB DIMM memory modules used in Intel V8 platform also consume about 5-6W each.

To estimate the power needs of the eight-core Intel PC for media content creation we decided to compare our data with the power consumption stats for other platforms. We measured the power consumption of the systems described above. First we will look at the results obtained under high workload. We used special OCCT utility to load the CPUs and memory. The chart below shows peak power consumption of our systems:

460W that we obtained on the system with two Intel Xeon X5365 processors is a pretty high result even for a dual-processor system. Nevertheless, AMD Quad FX platform appeared even more power-hungry: its maximum power consumption needs reached 530W.

Now let’s see how much power these systems will require in idle mode with Enhanced SpeedStep and Cool’n’Quiet technologies enabled.

Intel V8 consumes over 200W in idle mode. In this case it loses from the economical standpoint to AMD Quad FX, which Athlon 64 FX-75 processors can reduce their working frequency much more tangibly than Intel Xeon X5365.