Hello,

The Intel Core I7 3770 is listed at 3.4 GHz, the 3770K at 3.5 GHz (and unlocked). Both are listed at 77W power consumption (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ivy_Bridge_%28microarchitecture%29#Desktop_processors).

Does anyone know why the 3770K uses the same power consumption while being faster? As far as I know, all these CPU's get made in the same batch, and the ones that turned out better become a 3770K, and so on, is this correct?

Would a 3770K underclocked to 3.4GHz use less power?

Does it all depend on the individual piece you happen to receive by chance when buying it?

There are many answers to all the above. But usually when a processor with the same architecture gets rated lower, is that it failed a hardware benchmark during testing at the foundry and therefore got downgraded to where it didnt fail. In this case, a chip that could have been a 3770K became a 3770. This is typical for the hardware industry to improve die yield rates.

Basically, if you're asking if you can overclock it to 3.5GHz without worrying, liklihood is yes, assuming they didnt lock it. But there is risk that some feature may not work right or it may become unstable if you do so...

"Would a 3770K underclocked to 3.4GHz use less power?" technically yes, but negligibly so. Power consumption on modern processors is more related to whatever you're doing. Peak usage would be 77W, though most of the time, you'll never use it at peak.

Basically when you just increase the clock speed the cpu might become unstable you can then get it stable again by increasing the voltage at the expense of power consumption and higher temperatures. I think I read that the third generation core-i are less suited for overclocking but the second generation (sandy bridge) can typically be overclocked quite drastically. I tested my i5-2500K up to 4.8GHz ... (the power consumption rises quite drastically if you do that, generally more than the clock speed increase so performance/power actually gets worse).