Power Consumption

We tested the power consumption with a Watts Up? Pro power meter, using the devise to record the total system power consumption at the wall socket, while we ran three sets of four runs of Crysis in DX10 at 1920x1200.

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.




Frankly, we were so surprised by the power consumption of this card we had to check it more than twice. Sadly though the number you see here are completely accurate: The Palit Revolution 700 actually draws more power at idle than a stock Radeon HD 4870 X2, and not a small amount either. Drawing a full 338W at idle, it's by far the thirstiest single card we've ever seen.

While max and peak power consumption were roughly what we had expected from the slightly overclocked card, the custom board layout and power delivery system that Palit used to such great effect with the Palit 4850 Sonic just doesn't seem to have translated here, and the results are desperately disappointing.

Just for a little perspective, this increase in power consumption means that for every eight hours a PC with the Revolution 700 installed is sat at idle, it burns a whole kilowatt/Hr more power than a stock 4870 X2. We realise that these are both high power, high performance cards, but such a large and utterly unnecessary increase in power consumption is totally unacceptable.