Power Consumption:

On top of our graphics performance testing, we have also measured the power consumption of BFGTech's GeForce 8600 GTS OC2 ThermoIntelligence graphics card at both idle and load. For this we used our standard test system configuration listed earlier on in the review.

For our idle testing, we left the systems idling on the desktop for ten minutes, recording the average draw at the wall socket. For load testing, we used our benchmark routine from The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion and measured the peak power consumption in this section of the title. We tested the cards in a number of other scenarios and this proved to be the most intensive in all cases, so you can consider this to be a worst-case scenario.

Bear in mind that we have disabled all CPU-related power management options in the motherboard's BIOS so that we can highlight exactly how well the GPU's power management features are working (or not).



The card's power consumption is in line with previous expectations given the higher clock speed - it uses 1W more power than the standard 8600 GTS at idle and 7W more when it's loaded. The GeForce 8800 GTS 320MB is the ugly duckling at idle, but its power consumption manages to stay in check under load.