Phenom 9500 w/ MSI K9A2 Platinum

[KTE]

That's very good actually, thanks.

They use a very similar if not the same board as I had for my Intel builds, basically the same HDD and the same CPU cooler. If I was to measure at VRMs the wattage I gave will be lower for the CPU as some of that is lost from my quoted figures, and especially if I factor in my voltages, currents and power factor.

22.5W is DC wattage with power saving running. That's close to what Penryn 3GHz does idle too when power saving puts it to 2GHz, around 21.5W. It drops the multi/volts/speeds. With P4, Core 2 and Penryn, voltage/frequencies matter massively to temps and power as you will see by only increasing or decreasing by 0.1V from a nominal voltage. Even by increasing just the FSB you will see a measurable enough increase in temps/power. You can take a look >HERE< for a quick frequency/FSB/volt/VID effect to Penryn power demand.
You can observe a similar trend with Phenom, but not from 1.0V-1.24V. You will hardly get a power consumption difference even if you dropped the frequency by a full 1GHz. From 1GHz 1.55V to 2.7GHz 1.55V the difference in total system full load power draw is 296VAC vs 330VAC, which is minute.
So from 1GHz to 2.2GHz you will hardly see an idle power consumption difference if you keep the voltage/VID the same (load is obviously different) and even if you dropped the voltage by 0.2V from stock the difference is very small in comparison to what it is with AMD X2, Intel P4, Core 2 or Penryn architecture.

They also did not specify a few very important parameters to me such as idle/full load temps and CPU VID for each core. A higher VID will get higher power consumption with the same core and a lower one will get lower power consumption, such as what you see when you compare my (or your) Phenom at 2.2GHz/2.3GHz/2.4GHz/2.6GHz with reviews of the 9500/9600/9700/9900 or when they overclocked.

I will test the Q6600 hopefully myself soon to find out wattages accurately using the exact same hardware and conditions (apart from board/processor).

The overclocking peak is limited in Intel CPU's by a) chip quality (some are better and some worse for high FSB/high speeds) b) stock VID c) stock voltage d) stock multi e) motherboard f) cooling and thus, considering a) and e) are good, the cooler you go, the higher you can effectively reach (until the chip or cooling limit is reached).

The overclocking peak is limited in AMD CPU's by a) chip quality b) stock VID c) stock voltage d) stock multi. Cooling doesn't seem to be the limit at all because we can go far cooler, the chip stays very cool and yet you won't see a difference in MHz gained.

On a good chip and board;
The limit with Intel CPU's is heat/power/voltage (same as P4).
The limit with AMD CPU's is processor technology (same as A64).

What it effectively means is;
For Intel to speed down the fab size scale is nothing but pure enlarged benefits in every way in terms of higher transistor switching speeds, reliability, less leakage, lower volts, less heat, less TDP, higher frequencies, better performance. They need it and they know it and that's why they push down very fast when they get stuck at the max TDP with their CPU's. I've not seen the chips pushed yet to their peak, I mean absolute peak which someone like my tutor whose a government physicist can test which requires more effective cooling and conditions. Sub -200-250C and you will see their peak with the best chips chips. I believe their architectural peak is like that of P4 and Tejas, around 7-10GHz. And I DO believe Intel is trying to get that dream "Tejas" speed out still, but cannot do it, lower fab node is not improving their TDP enough to meet those demands, so they now need other ways around this (more cores/multiple threads per core/RAM inside CPU aka cache/tweaks) whilst still trying for higher speeds. One node down should get them 4GHz retail dual-core I reckon.

But for AMD, to attain higher frequencies since A64 days, you have to simply change the processing manufacturing technology and design first and foremost because that's where the limit lies, not in heat/voltage/temps. So running from 65nm to 32nm isn't going to have even a 50% benefit for AMD compared to that Intel will have, unless there are radical changes. It won't allow them much higher frequencies, certainly not the same as Penryn at 32nm can get or even what Core 2 at 65nm can potentially get with cold. I believe their architecture peak is like that of A64, around 4-5GHz and that's what they're trying to reach. I don't know what they're doing to circumvent this or even if they want to. With native quad, it throws things backwards from X2 so another two tweaked cores, one node down and you'll probably be able to get X2 speeds again.

[justapost]

That's very good actually, thanks.
They use a very similar if not the same board as I had for my Intel builds, basically the same HDD and the same CPU cooler. If I was to measure at VRMs the wattage I gave will be lower for the CPU as some of that is lost from my quoted figures, and especially if I factor in my voltages, currents and power factor.

Focusing on the cpu only makes sense if one is interested in technical details.
But in the end one must pay for the whole systems power consumption.

22.5W is DC wattage with power saving running. That's close to what Penryn 3GHz does idle too when power saving puts it to 2GHz, around 21.5W. It drops the multi/volts/speeds. With P4, Core 2 and Penryn, voltage/frequencies matter massively to temps and power as you will see by only increasing or decreasing by 0.1V from a nominal voltage. Even by increasing just the FSB you will see a measurable enough increase in temps/power. You can take a look >HERE< for a quick frequency/FSB/volt/VID effect to Penryn power demand.

Great, thank you, did i get that, Q7700 requires a huge amout more just because of DDR2-1600?
A note about measuring voltages. I tried three different psu's. A 460W and a 850W PSu with active pfc and a 420W with passive pfc.
My voltmeter shows 92% efficiency for the 460W active pfc psu and ~75% for the passive one. With the 850W psu the values fluctuate +-20V. Guess the passive one is the best one for measurment.

You can observe a similar trend with Phenom, but not from 1.0V-1.24V. You will hardly get a power consumption difference even if you dropped the frequency by a full 1GHz. From 1GHz 1.55V to 2.7GHz 1.55V the difference in total system full load power draw is 296VAC vs 330VAC, which is minute.

34VAC is what my new laptop requires in idle. 2-3W is minute for me atm.
I have to maintain ~50 pc's at work so each watt equals 50W in my field of activity.

So from 1GHz to 2.2GHz you will hardly see an idle power consumption difference if you keep the voltage/VID the same (load is obviously different) and even if you dropped the voltage by 0.2V from stock the difference is very small in comparison to what it is with AMD X2, Intel P4, Core 2 or Penryn architecture.

I experienced a different behaviour if i drop the voltage by 0,2V. Don't have the exact numbers at hand atm but the 0,2V drop saved around 10-15W in idle.

I will test the Q6600 hopefully myself soon to find out wattages accurately using the exact same hardware and conditions (apart from board/processor).

Might get one for testing too, have to build an intel rig for a co-worker whoms neighbor works for intel. This intel employee said he can give away older c2d's for free. So i asked for a q6600 for testing purposes. But all that will happen Q1/08.

The overclocking peak is limited in Intel CPU's by a) chip quality (some are better and some worse for high FSB/high speeds) b) stock VID c) stock voltage d) stock multi e) motherboard f) cooling and thus, considering a) and e) are good, the cooler you go, the higher you can effectively reach (until the chip or cooling limit is reached).

The overclocking peak is limited in AMD CPU's by a) chip quality b) stock VID c) stock voltage d) stock multi. Cooling doesn't seem to be the limit at all because we can go far cooler, the chip stays very cool and yet you won't see a difference in MHz gained.

On a good chip and board;
The limit with Intel CPU's is heat/power/voltage (same as P4).
The limit with AMD CPU's is processor technology (same as A64).

What it effectively means is;
For Intel to speed down the fab size scale is nothing but pure enlarged benefits in every way in terms of higher transistor switching speeds, reliability, less leakage, lower volts, less heat, less TDP, higher frequencies, better performance. They need it and they know it and that's why they push down very fast when they get stuck at the max TDP with their CPU's. I've not seen the chips pushed yet to their peak, I mean absolute peak which someone like my tutor whose a government physicist can test which requires more effective cooling and conditions. Sub -200-250C and you will see their peak with the best chips chips. I believe their architectural peak is like that of P4 and Tejas, around 7-10GHz.

LOL, you don't have a picture of such an testing environment you can post i guess. What do they use to get those temps, cryostatic temperature regulator ?
I studied physics for three years. But that was 10 years ago and i never needed that knowledge at work, so i forgott even the basic principles.

And I DO believe Intel is trying to get that dream "Tejas" speed out still, but cannot do it, lower fab node is not improving their TDP enough to meet those demands, so they now need other ways around this (more cores/multiple threads per core/RAM inside CPU aka cache/tweaks) whilst still trying for higher speeds. One node down should get them 4GHz retail dual-core I reckon.

But for AMD, to attain higher frequencies since A64 days, you have to simply change the processing manufacturing technology and design first and foremost because that's where the limit lies, not in heat/voltage/temps.

That equals to my findings during oc trials. My 9500 does not like voltages above 1,45V. Runs stable at 224MHz with 1,45 but freezes or powers out if i apply 1,475V. CPU temp during load is ~60°, which should not be a problem.

So running from 65nm to 32nm isn't going to have even a 50% benefit for AMD compared to that Intel will have, unless there are radical changes.

It won't allow them much higher frequencies, certainly not the same as Penryn at 32nm can get or even what Core 2 at 65nm can potentially get with cold. I believe their architecture peak is like that of A64, around 4-5GHz and that's what they're trying to reach. I don't know what they're doing to circumvent this or even if they want to. With native quad, it throws things backwards from X2 so another two tweaked cores, one node down and you'll probably be able to get X2 speeds again.

Did not follow the whole low vs high k discussion. Wasn't it mentioned that amd plans to go low-k on 32nm or even at 45nm?
Can you circumscribe the phrase "one node down" please, must admin that i'm not completely sure how to translate it.
BTW: bingo13 mentioned that after he killed his 9600 he got a new 0744 9600 which works more reliable. My 9500 is a 0742, what is yours?