Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 Processor Review

Power Consumption and Final Thoughts

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 POV-Ray 3.7 was run on all cores to make sure each and every processor was at 100% load. All of the systems used identical hardware minus the motherboard and processor.

Results: When it came to idle power consumption the Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 consumed the least amount of power! The entire system consumed just 127W at idle, which is impressive considering the test system has a water cooler hooked up to it. At full load the E7200 consumed what the Q6600 uses at an idle state! Not only will this processor be a big hit because of the $133 price point, but it also is energy efficient!

Final Thoughts

The upcoming Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 looks to be a price versus performance winner from what we can tell from the time spent with our early sample. If the rumored price of $133 is correct and the retail versions overclock like ours did then this will be hands down one of the hottest dual-core processors this summer. Intel has perfected the 45nm process and every new processor series they release based on it exceeds our expectations. The Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 is one of those processors.

When it came to performance, the Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 at default clock speeds was not hands down faster than the Intel Core 2 Duo E6750, but we’d pick the E7200 over it any day since it can be overclocked up to a 1333MHz FSB with just a single BIOS setting adjustment. Factor in overclocking beyond that and you have a price versus performance winner as overclocks over 50 percent are hard to ignore.

Intel informed us that the Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 is a 65W part, but it seems like it might actually be less. Our power consumption numbers showed that the Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 used significantly less power than the Intel Core 2 Duo E6750 and performed nearly the same in the majority of our benchmarks. With less power consumption the processor puts off less heat, so another thumbs up for the Intel Core 2 Duo E7200.

With nothing bad to say about the Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 and a rumored price at launch of $133, this is a value if we’ve seen one.

Legit Bottom Line: The Intel Core 2 Duo E7200 processor brings low-cost 45nm dual-core processors to consumers that have all the overclocking abilities of the higher-end processors.