CyberPower Core i7-920

Power

We measure power consumption using a Kill-A-Watt device at the wall outlet. Idle indicates a measurement taken in Windows with no applications running. Max indicates the maximum power draw with the system fully loaded (running eight instances of Prime95 and 3DMark Vantage simultaneously for this system). We've also indicated power draw with just the CPU loaded.

Results here are good, and remember that these numbers are at the outlet so power supply efficiency comes into play. The 650W power supply is more than sufficient to handle the load of this system.

Noise

We measured noise with a sound level meter, at distances of 24" and 48". For reference, ambient noise was approximately 37.5 dB(A).

Results here are also quite good, helped out by the water-cooling solution for the CPU. The HD 4870X2 and the case fans are the primary sources of noise, and while they emit a steady drone they're not unpleasant. Temperature controlled case fans would help idle noise quite a bit.

Temperature

We utilized CoreTemp 0.99.3 to measure CPU temperatures, which has incorporated the latest TjMax values for Intel processors. We loaded each core with Prime95 and ran 3DMark Vantage in the background.

The Core i7 processor runs quite hot, but the Asetek cooling solution does a good job here. In the Edge Z55, we saw a Core i7 hitting over 90C under load at 3.2GHz with a stock Intel HSF. This system comes clocked at 3.0GHz but never breaks 74C, and adventurous users could certainly push the CPU a lot further.