Power Consumption

Notice that the processors above have been listed in order according to their load result, but the idle results are often quite different and paint a different overall picture in power consumption.

Although the overclocked Core i7 965 Extreme Edition CPU was the most power hungry processor when under load, it used less power at idle than the Phenom X4 9950, Core 2 Quad Q9650, Core 2 Duo E8600, and E6700 processors. In fact, at idle the Core i7 processors were very efficient, while under load the standard Core i7 965 EE configuration used roughly the same amount of power as the Phenom X4 9950.

The conclusion we take out of this is rather evident. Despite of consuming a lot of power when fully used, at idle the Core i7 processors can throttle down and become very efficient.