Power Consumption

We decided to complete our studies with the quad-core systems power consumption measurements (without the monitor). The system configurations were the same as during our performance tests. Enhanced Intel SpeedStep and Cool’n’Quiet 2.0 power-saving technologies were activated. The processors were loaded with Prime95 25.5 utility.

	Idle	100% Load
AMD Phenom 9600	205 W	290 W
Intel Core 2 Quad Q6600	185 W	266 W
Intel Core 2 Quad Q9300	175 W	234 W

As we see, AMD processor doesn’t strike us as economical either. Despite its lower performance, it consumes more power, which makes its results really poor from the popular “performance-per-watt” standpoint.

Conclusion

Despite the catastrophic results of the new Phenom 9600 Black Edition processor in the end of our discussion, we didn’t intend to once again point out all the drawbacks of AMD’s quad-core solutions. It is not our fault that Phenom 9600 loses to Core 2 Quad competitors from Intel. It is slower, doesn’t overclock that well, features relatively high power consumption and is not free from the TLB bug that can only be fixed at the expense its performance.

But even despite all that, these CPUs will still find their customers. At least, among those unbreakable AMD fans who do not fear the hard times their favorite company is going through right now. Moreover, buying the youngest Phenom 9500 processor is not such a bad idea, as it is the today’s most affordable quad-core CPU in the market with no real competitors at this time.

We hope our article will help those of you who decide to go for a Phenom processor for your system. We figured out how to overclock these CPUs and saw that not only Black Edition processors can overclock well enough, but also the other representatives of the Phenom family. Although you will need a high-quality Socket AM2+ mainboard, if you intend to overclock quad-core AMD processors by raising their clock generator frequency.

As for the board, we can certainly recommend DFI LANParty UT 790FX-M2R solution. This is an excellent mainboard for computer enthusiasts with all necessary features, stable and predictable performance. In other words, DFI once again proved that their mainboards for AMD platform are still ones of the best out there.