Intel Core i7 990X Extreme Edition Hex-Core Processor Performance Review

System 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 fans, video cards and hard drives. 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.

Benchmark Results: The Intel Core i7 990X Extreme Edition processor is a power hungry beast. Though despite having two cores and two threads more than the Intel Core i7 950 it did manage to draw less power. Sitting Idle for at least 15 minutes the 990X was pulling 117 Watts, the 950 in the same circumstances was pulling 132 Watts! Once we fired up Prime 95 to put a load on the cores the 990X was pulling 252 Watts while the 950 was still drawing 10 Watts more at 262 Watts!