AMD Athlon 64 X2 6000+
Power Consumption
We have one final data point we'd like to cover before bringing this article to a close. Our goal was to give you all an idea as to how much power each of the system configurations we tested used while idling and running under load.
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Please keep in mind that we were testing total system power consumption here at the outlet, not just the power being drawn by the processors alone. In this test, we're showing you a ramp-up of power from idle on the desktop to full CPU load. We tested with a combination of Cinebench 9.5 and SANDRA XI running on the CPU.
The Athlon 64 X2 6000+ consumed roughly the same power as our Athlon 64 FX-62. While idling, the 6000+ actually drew 5 fewer watts than the FX-62 when using the same core logic chipset (NVIDIA's nForce 590 SLI) and under load is consumed roughly 6 more watts. Please also note that the RD580 chipset (ATI CrossFire Xpress 3200) consumes less power than the nForce 590 SLI, hence the two sets of power consumption scores for the FX-62. Had we also used the RD580 with the X2 6000+ processor its power consumption scores would likely scale down a bit as well.
Despite offering higher performance, it's also worth noting that the Core 2 Duo E6700 and Core 2 Extreme X6800 processor both consumed less power than the 6000+, which is a testament to the efficiency of Intel's Core microarchitecture. When AMD finally makes the transition to 65nm with their higher-end processor offerings, power consumption between AMD and Intel at the high-end should get more competitive.
