Power Consumption

Before we move on to the conclusions, let’s check the power consumption of systems with different ATI Radeon HD 4xxx graphics cards. The measurements were performed  with the help of a specially modified power supply unit in two modes: under load created by FurMark 1.7.0 in stability test mode and 1280x1024 resolution, and under load created by both FurMark and LinPack x64 (LinX 0.6.3, 3072 MB, 7 threads). The first test mode will allow us to determine the power consumption of the system in VGA burn mode, while the second test mode will show peak power consumption of the entire system. The results are given on the diagram below:

Only Radeon HD 4730 stands out, because for some reason it consumes in FurMark test even more than Radeon HD 4850, although under combination load the power consumption of both these systems is about the same. Moreover, I would like to point out Radeon HD 4890, which power consumption is just a little higher than that of a system with Radeon HD 4870, even though the former works at considerably higher clock speeds.