Final Thoughts and Conclusion

In the beginning of the article I pointed out that the AMD Phenom II 910e costs about the same as a faster, standard efficiency chip. You will, however, save on you electric bill since it uses less power. How much, you ask? Well, let's take a look. If you run a program like Folding@Home that utilizes all of your processing power 24/7 the Phenom II 910e uses 63Watts less than my Phenom II 940BE does. That is just over 1.5KW hours a day. Here in Chicago I pay around 10 cents per kilowatt hour. Per day you save only 15 cents. Doesn't seem like a lot, does it? 15 cents per day, everyday adds up. Over a year you save almost $55.00 a year. That $55.00 could buy you a new game or take a loved one out for dinner.

One thing I didn't touch on was temperatures. The AMD Phenom II 910e runs much cooler than the Phenom II 940BE. So much cooler I had to double check my numbers. While at idle it held steady at 22 degrees Celsius. Under full load it achieved a maximum temperature of 37 degrees Celsius! The AMD Phenom II 940BE, on the other hand, had temps of 48 degrees Celsius at idle and 65 degrees Celsius under full load. Even while overclocked I was unable to hit those kind of temperatures. While overclocked to 3.64GHz it held the same temperature at idle of 22 degrees. It did climb to a maximum temperature of 50 degrees Celsius once a heavy load was applied.

If going green is what you are looking for or just the need for a quiet computer, the AMD Phenom II 910e, without a sacrifice in performance, may be just the processor for you! With a tray price of $169.99 the AMD Phenom II X4 910e quad-core processor costs the same as the AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition processor. It is up to you to decide if you want extra horse power or better efficiency. If you are building an HTPC, SFF or a silent PC the AMD Phenom II X4 910e processor would be a great choice.

Legit Bottom Line: The AMD Phenom II 910e is a solid performing chip if only looking at the benchmarks. If you couple that with the low power consumption and temperatures you have a winning combination.

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