Intel Core i3-2120 3.3GHz Sandy Bridge Processor Review

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 identical
power supplies, Solid-Sate Drives, Memory kits and motherboards from
the same company. 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 were run on all
cores to make sure each and every processor was at 100% load for maximum
power consumption and heat. Curious about other test scenarios, we
decided to 3DMark Vantage the performance preset and took the maximum
power consumption during the first GPU test. We also tested a video
transcode using HandBrake 0.95 to see how the power draw on that was.

Benchmark Results: Power consumption shocked us a bit as we found that the Intel Core i3-2120 used less power than the Core i3-2105 processor in all four of our test scenarios. Both Core i3 processors have a maximum TDP
of 65 Watts, so the only logical conclusion that we can come to is that the Intel Core i3-2120 uses less power due to the use of Intel HD Graphics 2000. The Intel HD Graphics 3000 GPU uses 12 execution units versus the 6 used on Intel HD Graphics 2000. Since there are twice as many execution units on the Core i3-2105 it makes sense to why it uses more power than the Core i3-2120 even though is has a higher CPU clock frequency.