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.



The Radeon HD 4870 X2 is the loser again when it comes to power consumption, sucking up a whopping 415 Watts under peak load in comparison to the GeForce GTX 285's comparatively small 301W and even the GTX 295's 375W is some ten per cent lower. The case is the same at idle, with the Radeon card system pulling down 191 Watts at the wall, in comparison to the more economical GeForce GTX 285 and GTX 295 that are 8.5 and 12 per cent more efficient respectively.

No contest here then, with the GeForce GTX 285 by far the most frugal of these three cards when it comes to power consumption, and even the GTX 295 is not so bad for a dual GPU solution: Nvidia stretches the lead to 5-2.