Power Consumption

Since power consumption is a big deal these days, we ran some simple power consumption tests on our test beds. The systems ran with the power supplies, case fan, video card and hard drive model. To measure idle usage, we ran the system at idle for one hour on the desktop with no screen saver and took the measurement. For load measurements, Prime95's in-place large FFT's was run on all cores to make sure each and every processor was at 100% load for maximum power consumption and heat. All processors were tested on a system using as close to identical hardware as possible.

As I said above the processors were run in as close to identical hardware as could be done. The AMD Phenom II 910e is a socket AM3 processor and the Phenom II 940 is AM2+. I was able to put the Phenom II 910e into the AM2+ set up and take some readings but I couldn't do the opposite.

Benchmark Results: The AMD Phenom II 910e draws 56 Watts less at idle and a whopping 80 Watts less under full load than the Phenom II 940!