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 1920x1200.

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.



RV740's process technology advantage comes into play again here as not only does the card sip power under load, but also at idle as well. It uses 10W and 22W less than the 4830 and 4850 respectively at idle, while it uses nearly 40W less than the 4850 at load, despite delivering very similar performance!