| Intel Sandy Bridge Overclocking Guide |  |
| Articles - Featured Guides | |
| Written by Servando Silva | |
| Tuesday, 19 April 2011 | |
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Page 8 of 10
Overclock vs. Power ConsumptionSome people cry a lot about power consumption (including me). I'm the kind of person who wants the best efficiency if possible, and that means I want my CPU as fast as I can without doubling power consumption. As if we didn't have enough with all the extra components already! Reality is, many people don't even bother about power consumption, and after all, that's why they paid for an 800 watt PSU (even if they normally don't use more than 300 watts). Anyway, I'll test both Idle and Prime 95 modes and measure CPU power consumption with Real Temp 3.67. Have a look at the next results as they represent power consumption in idle mode. These numbers are important as you probably keep your PC near idle mode 70% (or more) of your time.
OK now we're talking. The Core i7 2600K consumes 10 extra watts against the Core i5 2500K at full load. When overclocked to 4GHz, the i5 increased 16 watts while the i7 increased 17 watts. The next step was overclocking both CPUs at 4.4GHz which according to the voltage it needs; it seems like the sweet point for Sandy Bridge overclocking. The Core i5 increased its power consumption to 82 watts, which is 23 extra watts against stock values, while the i7 increased to 94 watts, nearly arriving to the TDP. Finally at 4.8GHz the Core i5 consumes 90 watts, which is 50% extra consumption, while the Core i7 2600K reaches 105 watts, representing a 50% extra power consumption also. Of course, increasing power consumption means the CPU heatsink will have more watts to dissipate, thus increasing CPU temperatures. Let's have a look at our voltage vs. temperature results in the next page then.
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Comments
Take care.
Not to get too far away from your core article regarding Sandy Bridge, but do you have any insight as to whether or not AMD will maintain OC potential in their new lineup?
You know that phrase: "Like the old days". I'm not saying I don't like this new way of overclocking. Actually, I like not to pass several hours to find such a nasty or complex configuration for my PC, and doing it the the old way. New OC tools and features help a lot when what you just need is to bump your PC speed and get back to work, but sometimes it was funny to test and read a lot for that.
Also, sub-zero overclocking is quite fun, but with Sandy Bridge they somehow killed it.
Regarding the new AMD processors, I still have no information about them, so I'm anxious to test one.
And certainly the advantages of having a MB/CPU combo that is "self-monitoring" power, thrust, pitch and yaw outweigh the "good old days". And yes, I mostly like automatic transmissions over three-on-the-tree these days as well.
You can say that again! I read somewhere that Sandy Bridge reach its peak performance at about 20C. If you cool it more than that it won't reach quite as high speeds.
I've heard some processors do worst when going below 10-20C degrees. Again, it's good because now many users will be able to play and overclock without going extreme, but it won't be as interesting for extreme users.
Max Core Temps under (Idle - P95 load)
GHz..... 3.8 ... 4.00 ...... 4.2 ........ 4.4 ........ 4.6 ....... 4.80
Core 1 (51) (31 - 52) (29 - 54) (29 - 56) (31 - 62) (29 - 69)
Core 2 (53) (30 - 54) (30 - 56) (30 - 60) (31 - 66) (28 - 75)
Core 3 (53) (23 - 55) (22 - 57) (22 - 60) (31 - 68) (28 - 79)
Core 4 (51) (29 - 52) (28 - 55) (29 - 57) )31 - 65) (28 - 72)
Hope that formats well
What I am thinking now is making a "gaming profile" w/ HT turned off since I can prolly drop 7 - 10C at 4.8 Ghz ..... will give it a # when kid gets back in school but wondering if anyone's tried yet on SB.