Power Consumption and Stability

We reset the BIOS to its default settings. We fired up Prime95 torture test on every core and overlaid 3DMark06 looping over the top of it to test the entire CPU-memory-graphics subsystem.

The following day we were pleased to find both applications still running smoothly and the Renaissance going strong. The default memory options set our 1,600MHz Corsair Dominator to just 800MHz, which might be why the default memory voltage of 1.5V was enough to keep things running smoothly as the memory is rated at 1.65V when at its stock speed. Either way, we have another solidly put together board from Foxconn that’s more stable than a race horse trainer’s place of work.

Power Consumption

With a specific Core i7 920 CPU, 6GB (3x2GB) of memory, a GeForce GTX 280 graphics card and the BIOS set to its default values we tested with the Intel C-States enabled for the CPU throttling function. All the power saving is left entirely to Intel's Core i7 CPU.



Like the Blood Rage and unlike all the other X58 motherboards we've seen, the Renaissance doesn't ship with a power saving utility. In most cases the amount of power these utilities save is negligible at best so it's arguably not such a tragedy. As you can see from the graphics however, the board came in second most power hungry under load, and at the guzzlier end of the table for its idle value.