Power Consumption
We ran our three test platforms using Vista’s three default power schemes to get a better idea of exactly how each one affected our results.
For our performance benchmarks, all tests were conducted in High-Performance mode, with the Phenom X4 9850 BE running at 2.5 GHz and all BIOS-related performance features disabled. In a real-world environment, however, your PC is likely idle more than loaded with work, making the Balanced or Power saver schemes attractive. Unfortunately, the Power saver plan handicaps performance as it helps cut back on energy use, so that one’s out too. Thus, we measured power consumption using the Balanced plan.
According to AMD, the 790GX incorporates four power-saving improvements that you wouldn’t get on a 780G board. The first is a deep sleep on the side-port memory, yielding up to 1.7 W of savings. Of course, since most 780G boards don’t have side-port memory, that’s a tough comparison to make. Driver and BIOS enhancements made to AMD’s PowerPlay technology purportedly save up to 3.1 W as well. Onboard voltage scaling is said to be worth another 900 mW and new support for the C1e power state approaches 6 W of savings. Yes, Intel has had C1e support for more than two years now. It’s a bit of surprise that AMD took so long to jump on board.
All told, AMD claims the potential for up to 12 W of savings. Our idle measurement was a bit less pronounced at 4.9 W versus Gigabyte’s 780G board with side-port memory. And compared to Nvidia’s GeForce 8300, the difference was closer to 10 W. Given Geoff Gasior’s findings (http://techreport.com/articles.x/14993/12) that the GeForce 8300 uses more power than AMD’s 780G at idle and load, we were surprised to see our Asus board using significantly less energy than either the 790GX or 780G running 3DMark Vantage and Cinebench R10.
- amd ,
- integrated ,
- 790gx
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well done, yet another screwed up article
Toms has become a pathetic shambles
i agree, this site is rubbish since the takeover.
all the news is linked from other sources, double posts of articles on the front page, and articles not fully hosted.
Seriously, whoever runs this site needs to sort themselves out.
I would be fired if i allowed our website to get in this sort of mess.
I know, and I pay so much for this site as well...
I've been saying this for months now, and had most of my comments removed.
Why is this article posted twice on the front page, at two different times?
Why does the "northbridge table" on page 2 have no headder row? Which chipset is which?
Tom's Hardware used to be utterly superb, the only place I wanted to read my hardware news. Now I'm lucky if its written in coherent English, let alone factually correct and well presented!
In short, THG fails... hard.
LOL this article sucks more than paris hilton.......
Umm, where is the rest of the article?
THG has fallen more than I ever thought possible! Guess I'll bugger off back to Hexus....
yeah it's quite disappointing to see Toms go downhill like this
I thought this was an interesting article. I have complained about some of the others in recent past.... for example the nonsense one about Paint Shop's little brother.
But, it was easy to figure out which column related to which chipset, but when you make a stupid mistake like that it would be nice to go back and fix it.
I do not think the site is better nor worse since the take-over. It was never perfect. I think it is fine. It remains in my bookmarks. If you don't like it now, hang out at Anand's, hardocp, arstechnica, or overclockers.com or one of the many other decent places.
I agree.
lol i agree with most of you
, anyways , can someone tell me why vga charts aint been updated for 10 years lol? (a bit of exagerations if you didnt notice ) but where are the Geforce 9 series , guru3d has em why not toms?