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).




Not only does the Asus EN8600GT 256MB deliver a better gaming experience (on average) than the Sapphire Radeon HD 2600 XT 256MB GDDR4, it also uses less power in the process too. Idle power consumption is typically a strength of AMD's ATI Radeon graphics cards in the past, but this time we found the Asus EN8600GT 256MB to use 8W less power than the HD 2600 XT GDDR4 when idling.