With all the
antitrust noise,
threats to AMD, and
conflicts with NVIDIA, it's hard to feel too charmed with Intel at the moment. But, if you're looking for the best combination of performance and power consumption possible, you'll have to swallow any animosity and put an Intel inside, with an efficiency piece at
bit-tech.net finding that chips from that manufacturer were, on average, considerably more efficient than their AMD counterparts. That's just part of the story, the site testing everything from memory to power supplies and finding the best compromise of performance and efficiency. It's perhaps no surprise that high-efficiency
PSUs trump older, hotter ones, but you might not expect to learn that desktop SSDs offer barely any improvement over their 5,400RPM platter-based brethren. Follow the article's advice and you can shed 104 watts without losing a single 3DMark point -- though you may shed quite a few dollars in the process.
posted February 25th 2010 9:44AM
Yep, as much as people want to hate them, they're still the best at what they do (cept graphics)
@216 And if AMD had more revenue, due to Intel's disgusting behind the scenes behaviour, they might be able to do better than they are now.
Support the underbog for better competition.
@Schmich I agree, AMD still isn't looking fantastic, but they are certainly competitive in the desktop market. Power usage in a desktop computer isn't really that big of a deal.
@216 Yes, lets rewind a couple years and look at the thermonuclear furnace that was the Pentium 4 and how it was in every aspect inferior to AMDs products and how Intel hat to bribe, smear and threaten distributors to keep pushing that garbage down the consumers throat.
See, Intel? If you want to, you can actually be competitive without being anticompetitive!
@ImSpartacus your kidding right? If power consumption isn't a big deal, why is there such a push to make them more efficient? That's like saying MPG is overrated.
@216
Look at all these folks trying to justify their AMD builds by ragging on Intel. Give it up guys - a computer's a computer. If it works for you and that's all you could afford - then enjoy it ;)
@PBB
"If power consumption isn't a big deal, why is there such a push to make them more efficient?"
Because Intel and AMD both recycle their desktop technology into their mobile offerings. When you see Intel and AMD making strides in power efficiency on a particular core design their initial goal is to make chips that can run a laptop for more than 5 minutes...not to make your desktop machine run 5 degrees cooler. Of course, there are other benefits to better power efficiency as well. Usually better power efficiency means a higher level of top end performance.
What you usually see in the market is a new CPU design will come out for servers/desktops, it gets refined into a more power efficient mobile version that is later released for laptops/notebooks, then still later it swings around and gets pin repackaged and is offered as a budget cpu in cheap desktops which these days is marketed as being 'Green' or having 'low power consumption'. Which is true, especially by comparison because by then usually the CPU maker has released their next gen desktop cpu, and whaddaya know, the power usage is SKY HIGH again. But, the cycle continues because people don't really notice or care as much about their desktop running a little hotter as they do about their laptop draining it's battery before they can watch an entire Family Guy episode (or whatever) on Hulu...
@PBB In the consumer realm, power consumption only truly matters in laptops. Desktops don't have batteries to worry about.
@Phenom
Troll
I don't think anyone has used 5400 rpm desktop hard drives for a long time, 7200 rpm has been standard for the last 5 years. How do SSDs compare to 7200rpm and why is anyone testing 5400 ?
@fourthletter Actually plenty of newer high capacity HDDs are 5400rpm and they're quite popular as they're usually cheaper than the 7200rpm ones.
I've never had a 5400 rpm. I have a 10k rpm for my os and a 7200 for storage.
So yeah, comparing it to that is irrelevant.
@fourthletter
It's still quite common in laptops, as they're a huge power save compared to a 7,200RPM HDD.
@fourthletter SSD FUD if you ask me.
The harddrive has almost nothing to do with a 3DMark score.
Nobody in their right mind would use a 5400rpm drive as a desktop boot drive.
@Prevacator
4200rpm are common in laptops with 5400rpm the more expensive option.
@fourthletter You're wrong. Almost all the "green" labeled high capacity drives are 5400rpm drives. Dont be fooled by marketing yip-yap such as "intelispeed" that suggest the drive will adapt its rpm. They're all fixed rpm drives.
@fourthletter Read for yourself: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/ssd-hdd-battery,1955.html
@fourthletter
Actually, all those "Green" TB-range HDDs are 5400 rpm. As you increase data density slower drives don't slow down as much (less travel time)
Hey guys i really need you help!
I am studing at Coventry university and i have a project about electricity consumption from computers and how we can reduce it. I just found that topic accidentally.Do you know more websites and topics about computer electricity consumption to get an idea to to my project.i appreciate it and i hope you will help me.
thanks in advance
@lenarass
check out this article http://www.silentpcreview.com/article265-page1.html
@lenarass : TCO certification might be of interest?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TCO_Certification
Cool article. Did not think anyone still cared about NIC cards for their home PCs considering any half decent motherboard comes with gigabit ethernet.
With all the foul tricks, Intel managed to get enough profit to invest in newer production technology like High-K metal gate (Hafnium-based transistors) and invest in newer immersion lithography machines.
AMD will strike back hard with their joint-coop GlobalFoundries fabs.
They'll start producing 28nm ARM processors first, then ATI hardware will follow.
"you can shed 104 watts without losing a single 3DMark point -- though you may shed quite a few dollars in the process"
How true that is. Personally, I have a hard time justifying spending much more on a desktop CPU that is somewhat more efficient. Electricity is cheap, and you probably won't even notice the difference on your energy bill unless you alwyays have your computer running at full load. (Hardcore gamers maybe?)
I've been sticking with cheaper but comparable AMD processors for years for just that reason, and it suits me fine. I don't buy bleeding edge, but I get fairly competent processors. Most times they're not running at full load anyway, with the exception of some gaming and home video transcoding, so the efficiency isn't that different.
And like Schmich said, supporting the underdog can only lead to better competition, and therefore win for us consumers.
I'll stick with AMD. They offer me the most bang for the buck, A Phenom II X4 is more than powerful enough until they release bulldozer. And those radeons
If you;re gaming on a gaming desktop, who gives a shit about energy consumption. Give me my power
I will use my AMD and ATi, thank you sir.
surprise! surprise!
lower clock rates use less energy
Perhaps it's my lack of knowledge, but I read Tom's comparison of SSD vs HDD as basically flawed. Am I right in assuming they ran the same test again and again until the laptop died? I have a feeling that since (at least) the read throughput of the SSD is so much faster than the HDD, they may have executed the task, say, 10,000 times compared to the HDD which may have executed the task 3000 times. Can someone correct me if this is wrong, because that's the impression I'm getting from that article.
If I'm wrong, so be it and I'll happily accept down-ranking oblivion. If I'm right, I do wonder how they let such a comparison out the door.
Why would you expect an SSD to use considerably less power than a 5400rpm HDD? They don't run hot nor loud, so where would the extra energy go?