System Power Consumption
To obtain accurate results we have connected the system to a Power Angle power meter that has in turn been attached to a 1500watt UPS. This ensures only 120volt power is supplied to the PSU and removes an variances that could potential crop up because of brownouts and power spikes.
In order to stress the video card we have once again used Unigine’s Valley benchmark and ran it for 20 minutes to determine peak system power consumption. For idle results we have let the system idle at the Windows 7 desktop for 25 minutes and recorded the peak idle power consumption.
Considering this card comes with such a massive factory overclock the increase in power consumption was expected; however considering the boost in performance those 43 watts of additional power give you, not many will consider it a hardship. Of course if you plan on SLI’ing two of these cards you will want to make sure your PSU can handle the extra wattage demands.
