Power Consumption

We measured the power consumption of our test systems running in the nominal mode with a discrete graphics card as well as integrated graphics core and in an overclocked mode with a discrete ATI Radeon HD 4870 graphics accelerator. We used Extech Power Analyzer 380803 device. This device is connected before the system PSU, i.e. it measures the power consumption of the entire system without the monitor, including the power losses that occur in the PSU itself. When we took the power readings in idle mode, the system was completely idle: there were even no requests sent to the hard drive at that time. We used Fritz Chess Benchmark to load the CPU and FurMark utility to load the graphics subsystem. We recorded the maximum readings.

Of course, CPU overclocking by raising the core voltage increases the system power consumption. However, in this case the transition from a power-efficient integrated to a powerful discrete graphics solution has a much bigger influence on the end result.