Power Consumption of Intel's 65nm Processors

Other than poor performance, extremely high power consumption has been a frequently voiced criticism about Intel's Prescott. Thanks to its 31+ stage pipeline and high clock speeds, the Pentium 4 and Pentium D tend to draw quite a bit of power. How does 65nm change the power consumption landscape?

First up is Cedar Mill:

Cedar Mill Power Consumption

At idle, Cedar Mill doesn't really draw all that much less power than Prescott. We measured a 3W decrease at 3.6GHz, but since both Cedar Mill and Prescott implement Intel's Enhanced Speed Step (EIST) and the new C1E Halt instruction, power consumption is identical on both.

Next up, we loaded two threads of POV-ray's benchmark to fully load the CPUs and compare power consumption under load:

Cedar Mill Power Consumption

Under full load, the Cedar Mill system at 3.6GHz drew 176W while the Prescott system at 3.60GHz pulled 213W, an average of 21% more power than Cedar Mill. The move to 65nm definitely helps, but AMD still has the low power advantage. While we didn't have an identical AMD system on hand to compare exact numbers, Intel's 90nm Pentium 600 series chips have generally consumed as much as 50% more power than AMD's 90nm offerings.

Next, we have Intel's dual core processors - Smithfield (90nm) and Presler (65nm):

Presler Power Consumption

We only had a 2.8GHz Presler on hand at the time of testing, but here, we see that Presler at 3.40GHz draws slightly less power than Smithfield at 2.8GHz.

Presler Power Consumption

Now under full load, Presler at 3.40GHz still consumes the same amount of power as Smithfield at 2.8GHz. Once again, we see a decent improvement due to the decreased power consumption of Intel's 65nm process. Intel will need to look towards Conroe, Merom and Woodcrest to finally become competitive in power consumption.

Overclocking Potential of Intel’s 65nm Processors Final Words
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  • Beenthere - Friday, October 28, 2005 - link

    In my not so humble opinion, one could write a doctorate thesis on the mistakes Intel has made in design and execution of it's PC products over the past 6 years. With today's announcement that Intel is canceling "White powder up Hotellini's nose" and "Tuck it up your butt Willy", you know the fools on the hill have no clue. As anyone in the IT industry knows, Intel does not respond well to competition let alone superior products by the competition. Intel has made one blunder after the other since AMD launched Athlon years ago. Intel has had repeated defective products, canceled products, delayed products, missed delivery dates, factory closings, chipset shortages requiring them to buy ATI chipsets, etc. The list of BLUNDERS by Intel is almost endless and continues as I write.

    http://www.theregister.com/2005/10/29/intel_xeon_2...">http://www.theregister.com/2005/10/29/intel_xeon_2...

    Having a marginal 65 nano process at best, which actually just about competes on power consumption with AMD's 90 nano process, shows quite clearly that Intel is WAY behind the eightball despite the media hype! As history has shown, despite the years of denial, the P4 was a defective design rushed to market to try and kill Athlon, which it never accomplished. Now with Intel's most recent chip "delays" which will turn to cancellations next year, you will see some more cobbled crap from Intel that only losers would even consider buying.

    So once again just as with their 90 nano process, that was according to Intel: "ahead of their development schedule", and then showed up in the marketplace over a year LATE and it was STILL a defective design as released with massive voltage leakage that required special cooling, cases, etc. Intel's 65 nano process hasn't even allowed them to catch up to AMD's existing products. It's all just hype and no substance, as usual for Intel.

    What we have is Intel's PR machine spinning overtime as usual and no competitive products ANYWHERE in Intel's product line. They even lost their minimal advantage with the Pentium M in the laptop segment as the 25W and 35W Turions have stolen Intel's lunch. Bottom line is only a fool would buy any Intel product in the foreseeable future when AMD's products, by virtually all industry standards and reports, are far, far superior. It's encouraging to see consumers voting with their wallets. At least some consumers and industry sources have seen thru Intel's deception and purchased AMD products. Intel's days of extortion are pretty much over now that the cat is outta the bag.
  • IntelUser2000 - Friday, November 4, 2005 - link

    Beenthere, how is having bad processor equate to having bad process technology??? Are most people that uninformed and stupid??? If Intel introduced Dothan for their first 90nm part, then people would have been praising Intel's 90nm process. Intel rather put Prescott out first, so people thought badly about it. If you DO read about what happened, focus has been all shifted to Merom/Conroe, OUT OF CEDARMILL/PRESLER PROJECTS. What happens then?? All the speedpath optimizations and low power optimizations that are supposed to go to Cedarmill/Presler went to Merom/Conroe. Merom will be ~30W DESPITE the fact its dual core, 4-wide architecture. Does Pentium M have low power compared to Prescott because its on a better process technology??? No.

    Intel has one of the best 90nm process, if not THE best.
  • Thatguy97 - Monday, May 25, 2015 - link

    conroe proved you an idiot
  • eljefeII - Wednesday, October 26, 2005 - link

    hehehe, yeah! yeah! intel s-s-smokes! yeah yeah!

    65 nm did like, um, a lot, yea, hhehhe. I don't see anything heheh, hehehhe. hehehhe.

    Shut up beavis. Just like buy it and stuff.

    hehhe yeah! buy it BUY IT BUY IT!!!
  • Zebo - Tuesday, October 25, 2005 - link

    It's nice to see this will be a decent enthusiast chip.. Guys should get 1500-2000Mhz overclocks which will put some excitment into to the overclocking scene again. Sure stock they will suck but people I know don't run that way. A 4.5Ghz Cedar is fast no doubt about it probably equates to a 3Ghz A64 in a round table of benchmarks. As it happens 3Ghz seems pretty normal these days especially with the new Opteron 939's. So it would be great to hold a "overclockers shootout" of some sort when you guys have time. Say a 144 Opteron vs. Pentium 631 :D

    One small error PP: 2 "Presler is physically two separate dice on a shared package,"

    Die
  • danidentity - Wednesday, October 26, 2005 - link

    The correct term is actually 'dies'. Dice is the plural form of die only when referring to the cube you play board games with. ;)
  • yacoub - Wednesday, October 26, 2005 - link

    This man is correct.
  • coldpower27 - Tuesday, October 25, 2005 - link

    Isn't Dice the plural form of Die though?

  • GonzoDaGr8 - Tuesday, October 25, 2005 - link

    Dies
  • Zebo - Tuesday, October 25, 2005 - link

    Edit I meant presler and 930 respectivly.

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