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 1,920 x 1,200.

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.



Surprisingly considering the revised power architecture involved in the move from twin PCB to single PCB, there's almost no difference in power consumption between the original and revised versions of the GTX 295 at either idle or load, although both still slightly undercut the thirstier Radeon HD 4870 X2.