Thermal design power (CPU) over time

Chart

6 figures from 6 machines, spanning 1993 to 2023. The lowest thermal design power here is 10.1 W (Intel Pentium PC, 1993) and the highest is 125 W (Intel Core i9-14900K PC, 2023). The two are not divided into a multiple: thermal design power is not a metric where a ratio means anything. The figures are plotted in W. Points use the release date of the machine the figure belongs to. The table below lists absent figures with their recorded reasons.

Data

One row per figure, in date order. Figures with no value stay in the table. The chart omits them because an unpublished figure is not a low one.

provisional A figure marked provisional is recorded but not accepted: its evidence is unsettled. It may rely on one source, an unconfirmed announcement, or a digit read from a damaged scan. The reason appears under the figure. The catalog shows the figure but never uses it in a multiplier. How records are judged.

Machine	Released	Figure	Confidence	Sources
Intel Pentium PC Intel Pentium	1993	10.1 W	Vendor-rated	intel-pentium-datasheet
Intel Pentium II PC Intel Pentium II	1997	43.0 W	Vendor-rated	intel-pentium-ii-datasheet
Intel Pentium 4 PC Intel Pentium 4	2002	81.9 W	Vendor-rated	intel-pentium-4-datasheet
Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 PC Intel Core 2 Duo E6600	July 2006	65 W	Vendor-rated provisional	intel-historical-x86-documentation wikipedia-intel-conroe
Intel Core i7-2600K PC Intel Core i7-2600K	January 2011	95 W	Vendor-rated provisional	intel-core-i7-2600k-specifications
Intel Core i9-14900K PC Intel Core i9-14900K	October 2023	125 W	Vendor-rated provisional	intel-desktop-processor-reference
Intel 8086 PC Intel 8086	1978	unknown The historical processor documentation records electrical limits and speed grades, not the later TDP convention.	not plotted	—
Intel 80286 PC Intel 80286	1982	unknown The absence is real and now documented, and this is the one period x86 part whose datasheet does print a wattage: 3.3 W. It prints it under ABSOLUTE MAXIMUM RATINGS, beside a warning that these are stress ratings only and that operation beyond the Operating Conditions is not recommended — a limit past which the part is damaged, not a target a cooling solution is designed to. The operating specification for what this processor consumes is a current: 600 mA maximum at a 0°C turn-on.	not plotted	—
Intel 80386DX PC Intel 80386DX	1985	unknown The absence is real and now documented. The datasheet's DC characteristics specify a supply current for each speed grade — 320 mA maximum against 240 mA typical for the 25 MHz part — and no power figure. The current is quoted against a 50 MHz CLK2 input, which is twice the processor's own frequency, so even the inputs to an unauthorized derivation are easy to misread.	not plotted	—
Intel 80486DX PC Intel 80486DX	1989	unknown The absence is real and now documented. The datasheet's DC specifications give supply current in milliamps — typically 700 mA at 33 MHz — and state no wattage anywhere; the Absolute Maximum Ratings beside them cover temperature and voltage only. Multiplying current by the supply voltage would produce a watt figure Intel never published, from a typical rather than a design maximum.	not plotted	—

Why this chart holds one group only

Every point on a chart is implicitly compared with every other point on it. This chart uses one comparability group: one metric, one device scope, one method . There is no chart of all clock frequencies over time because they are not one quantity.

Points use the release date of the machine a figure belongs to, including figures recorded against a part. A release date applies only to a machine that shipped. What this metric measures.