Power Consumption (Idle and Gaming)

We tested the power consumption with a Watts Up? Pro power meter, using the device to record the total system power consumption at the wall socket, while we ran three sets of four runs of Crysis in DX10 at 1,920 x 1,200.

Using the data recorded by the meter we could determine the peak output, the consistent minimum and the average load over the entire run of tests.

As both ATI and Nvidia test benches are now identical Core i7 systems, we can accurately determine the apples to apples difference of what power both PCs take to run.


We were very surprised to find that the Gigabyte GeForce GTS 250 1GB's power consumption when idle was so much lower than the original GTS 250, with the Gigabyte card pulling a full 26W less than its compatriot. This is likely down to both the Gigabyte's refreshed board design, which uses just a single 6-pin PCI-E connector as opposed to the older GTS 250's twin PCI-E connectors, and Gigabyte's use of high quality power delivery circuitry. Either way, the result is idle power consumption that rivals the 40nm Radeon HD 4770.


Peak power consumption though is much the same as the stock GTS 250, with the Gigabyte GeForce GTS 250 1GB pulling 287W to the GTS 250 512MB's 283W.