Page 9 - Power Usage, Overclocking
One interesting aspect that has come across to major consumer concerns is power consumption. The efficiency of the product is a key; as depicted by terms such as 'performance-per-watt' comparing the ratio of how much performance you get for the power supplied to the component.
However, one must note that products in the high-midrange to high end would get the best efficiency in this regard for mature or powerful latest technology, as well as performance orientation. Budget oriented products may not get the most in this area, since there is a base power consumption -- you can't possibly produce a product that uses next to no power just because the product itself is not performance oriented.
To measure power consumption, we've measured to overall power consumption of our test system during idle and load scenarios. The results are outlined in the graph above; and our results indicate that the BFG 7600GT OC consumes 131W during idle conditions -- while PowerColor's X1550 used 6W more power under the same scenario. On the other hand, the fluctuation is a lot less on the X1550 when compared to the 7600GT -- under load conditions, the total power consumption on our test system with the X1550 was 158W, while same scenario with the 7600GT was 180W.
Neither cards require a direct power connection from the power supply.
Overclocking is better compared to the stock speed of the product itself rather than other products due to core and architecture differences -- and to display this, we've used ATITool to obtain the highest stable overclock. In addition to software artifact scanning, we've verified the stability with our own eyes to verify the accuracy.
In terms of memory, we've managed to overclock it from 800MHz (400MHz actual) to 900MHz (450MHz actual). The core allowed a slight overclock of 621MHz from 600MHz.
Page Index
1. Introduction, Specifications, Bundle
2. A Closer Look
3. Test System, Benchmark: Half Life 2: Lost Coast
4. Benchmark: FEAR
5. Benchmark: Prey
6. Benchmark: Quake 4
7. Benchmark: CS:S cs_militia
8. Benchmark: 3DMark06
9. Power Usage, Overclocking
10. Noise Factor and Conclusion
