Power Consumption:

On top of our graphics performance testing, we have also measured the power consumption of these graphics cards 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's roughly in between the standard clocked Asus EN8600GT and the Nvidia GeForce 8600 GTS. At load, it uses more power than a GeForce 7900 GS, but less than the competition from AMD.