To test power consumption today we are using a Keithley Integra unit and we measure power consumption from the VGA card inputs, not the system wide drain. We measure results while gaming in Crysis Warhead and record the results.
In such an energy aware climate, AMD are making a big deal out of their new ‘ZeroCore Power’ technology. Many solutions today use power gating, clock gating and memory compression to reduce idle power requirements, but ZeroCore power technology can completely power down the core GPU while the rest of the system remains active.
The HIS HD7970 IceQX² Turbo consumes significantly more power than the HIS HD7950 IceQ, peaking at 248watts when gaming. The HIS HD7950 IceQ only demands 194 watts when gaming, which is quite good considering the power on tap.
I always worry about warranty with HIS, they dont seem to have much support in UK
The 7970 looks good, nice looking cooler and great performance, but I wont order from OCUK, ever. too many bad experiences
Excellent, I like both of these, but they always appeared as a more budget make to me, the prices are just as high as Sapphire/.XFX etc