Intel vs. AMD Performance-Per-Watt On Ubuntu 14.04 Linux

The timed kernel compilation results shouldn't be surprising since the same test profile was used in the earlier article.

Interestingly the A10-7850K power draw for this benchmark was rather surprisingly high and the overall AC power draw had matched that of the Intel Core i7 4770K (113 vs. 116 Watts for overall AC power draw) when running Ubuntu Linux. The various Intel Core i3 and Core i5 CPUs consumed much less power during this benchmark. The kernel was left in its default/stock state during all of the testing, including the use of the default CPUfreq drivers and governors.

When looking at the performance-per-Watt then of building the kernel while comparing it against the AC power draw, the Intel Core i7 4770K did the best with its fastest compilation time. The A10-7850K performance meanwhile was quite poor. The Core i5 4670 and Core i7 3770K CPUs yielded much better results while the A10-7850K came out just ahead of the Core i5 3470 "Ivy Bridge" CPU and trailing behind was the Core i3 4130 and Core i3 2120 CPUs.

While the A10-7850K APU temperature wasn't monitored due to its ID not being present by the thermal driver on Linux 3.13, from this comparison of the Intel CPUs we see the i7-4770K was running the hottest while the Core i3 4130 was on average the lowest.