Intel Core 2 Extreme Processor QX9650 Review

Power Consumption and Overclocking

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 Beta 23 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: The Intel QX9650 actually consumed less energy than the QX6850 at both idle and load, which was a bit shock. It just goes to show that Intel has spent a lot of time with Yorkfield making sure it is energy efficient and that the core doesn’t leak. From this testing it shows that 45nm is much better for power consumption as it was 20% more energy efficient at load over the Intel QX6850!

Overclocking

With limited time for overclocking we topped out at 4.01GHz, which isn’t the max as the processor still has more left in it. We ran out of time to find out just how high it would go, but at 4.01GHz we are impressed with what we have already reached.

Results: Just for fun we fired up POV-Ray Real-Time Raytracing and ran the application only to find the Intel QX9650 enjoyed a 31% performance boost with a 33% boost in overall clock frequency. This overclock just goes to show how much potential these cores have in the months ahead!