AMD FX-8350 Linux Performance-Per-Watt

The first benchmark for this latest AMD Vishera Linux testing was timing the Linux kernel build process.

The average power consumption of the AMD FX-8350 while all eight cores were tapped out with building the Linux kernel was 207 Watts, while beginning at 91 Watts for the overall system power consumption under idle, and 222 Watts at its peak for the overall system power draw. When overclocked to 4.60GHz, the FX-8350 had an average power draw of 264 Watts.

For the previous-generation AMD FX-8150 Bulldozer, its power draw on average was 189 Watts, a 211 Watt peak, and and 94 Watt minimum. When the FX-8150 multiplier was adjusted to run at 4.00GHz while running at the same voltage, the average power consumption jumped to 235 Watts -- well above the 207 Watt average of the FX-8350. When the FX-8150 was pushed to 4.60GHz, the average AC power draw was 297 Watts.

At the stock frequencies, the FX-8350 delivered much greater performance-per-Watt than the FX-8150. However, when the FX-8150 was pushed to the higher frequencies to match the FX-8350, it ended up delivering greater performance-per-Watt than the newer Vishera CPU.