Power Consumption For this test we hooked up our power supply to a UPM power meter that will log the power consumption of the whole system twice every second. In order to stress the GPU as much as possible we once again use the Batch Render test in 3DMark06 and let it run for 30 minutes to determine the peak power consumption while letting the card sit at a stable Windows desktop for 30 minutes to determine the peak idle power consumption. We have also included several other tests as well. Please note that after extensive testing, we have found that simply plugging in a power meter to a wall outlet or UPS will NOT give you accurate power consumption numbers due to slight changes in the input voltage. Thus we use a Tripp-Lite 1800W line conditioner between the 120V outlet and the power meter.
The law of power consumption and graphics cards usually goes something like this: increase clocks and more power is needed. Nearly all of the cards featured in this roundup adhere to this law…all except one. Somehow, Sapphire managed to keep power consumption below that of lower clocked cards. We don’t know how they did this but after testing over and over again, the same facts presented themselves. Unfortunately, Sapphire couldn’t help with the abysmal idle power consumption that seems to plague the HD 4890 series.
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