AMD's Quad FX platform

Based on performance and power consumption, AMD's 4x4 platform, a.k.a. Quad FX has received a more or less lukewarm reception by the media. There were a number of things that stuck us as a bit odd in the entire equation, reason enough to discard some of our first impressions and start digging. Digging into performance issues, probing BIOS settings, untangling power profiles down to a "per core" level and comparing operating systems for power efficiency among other things quickly became the real focus of this article. In the end, there are still a few issues that need to be addressed, especially in terms of BIOS functionality and possibly also with respect to tuning of the VRM to increase its efficiency. We have a plethora of data and we chewed them up into digestible bits, nibbles, and bytes for the pleasure of our readers. Enjoy the rest of the article!