Power Consumption and CPU temperatures

The new Clarkdale based processors are a bit of a redesign with accompanying die-shrink and as result they are quite energy friendly processors. A processor like the Core i5 660 for example consumes only 73 Watts, and that is with all cores stressed. The Core i5 661 processor with faster IGP consumes 87W at full load. Next to that, clever power management allows the internal voltage and processor multiplier to drop, core independent.

All processors launched today have a TDP of 73W or 87W and that's quite an improvement and it shows this during our measurements:

As you can see, these are really respectable numbers. Mind you that this was done with an H55 motherboard, an SSD, optical drive, 4GB memory and for the last entry, Radeon HD 5870 graphics card.

For the best power consumption make sure you have BIOS features like EIST and C1E enabled and within Windows set your performance mode to balanced (allows the processor to clock down).

Temperatures are very good as well. With an air cooler you can expect temps like below:

Now I need to mention that these temperatures are managed with a stock reference cooler -- you'll reach roughly 60 degrees C / 140 degrees Fahrenheit. Try to imagine what happens when you slap proper cooling on there, the overclocking potential will become tremendous.

Of course results will vary with different motherboards and cooling solutions. But as a baseline the temperatures definitely are promising, especially with overclocking in mind.

Have a peek below, 100% CPU load is 4 cores 100% stressed with Prime 95, voltages are left at default, processor Turbo mode is enabled. Overclocked temps of course will differ, but we'll show you that in another separate chapter.