Power Consumption:

On top of our graphics performance testing, we have also measured the power consumption of Zotac's GeForce 8600 GT ZONE Edition 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).



When it comes to power consumption, the GeForce 8600 GT is the most frugal of the cards tested at both idle and load in previous comparisons and Zotac's card is no different on that front. With the Zotac GeForce 8600 GT ZONE Edition installed, our entire system draws just 90W of power at idle and 137W when a fairly typical 3D load is applied.