Skylake i5-6600 Power Consumption Tests

Another machine with a few different parts but somewhat similar to the previous Skylake power consumption test I did.

System specs: i5-6600, Asus B150M-A, 2x8GB DDR4, 1x240GB Intel 535 SSD, 1xWD Blue 1TB, 1xLiteOn DVD-RW, Antec TPC 550W, Coolermaster Silencio 352. Power measurements were made from the wall (240V AC) with a PowerMate Lite.

Machine State	Consumption (W)	VA	PFC
Off	1.5 W	16.2	0.092
Idle	30 W	45.9	0.65
Prime 95 (Large FFTs, 4 threads)	108 W	115	0.939

The above values are typical. Peak recorded draw was 119.5W. Maximum temperature hit was 80°C. During Prime95 the core frequency fluctuated between 3389 MHz and 3491 MHz.

Not sure why the power usage was so much more than the 6500 system. I guess the combination of faster CPU, different motherboard, extra RAM, fan and SATA drives (even though they were at idle) and warmer "silent" case all contributed to the increase.

How Much CPU Does CS:GO Use?

I ran a quick test on CS:GO to see how much CPU it was using. Turned out to be more than I expected, regularly getting 60-80% on an i5, sometimes in excess of 80%.

This screen cap is taken on my system with an i7 4790K hyperthreading off (aka "i5 mode"), using a GTX970 at 1080p. It was taken during online deathmatch. With hyperthreading on it was similar usage, but only using the 4 real threads makes it easier to see how much the CPU is being used.

If you're looking for a CPU and can afford an i5, it would seem like a quad-core CPU is useful even for an "old" game like CS:GO.

Interestingly though, when running with 2 cores + hyperthreading activated, the usage didn't go up by a whole lot:

This cap is with 2 cores and hyperthreading activated — essentially an i3^†. It gets into the 80-90% more regularly, but it's not that much more. I can only guess the engine is a bit clever in scaling what it does based on the resources available. I did notice a few frame drops into the low 100s, but the gameplay didn't feel particularly different.

_{† The i7 has a higher base clock speed and a much bigger CPU cache, so it's not a true test for how an i3 would behave}