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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 card demands only 4 watts of power when in the long idle power state. This rises to a maximum of 215 watts when loaded with a high demand game, averaging often around 190-200 watts with some titles. When loaded with Furmark this rises to just over 270 watts.
Nice system this would make. The 7970 is brilliant and the motherboard seems well made, much like everything sapphire do. I dont really like their bioses however as I think they are adopting a different style of overclocking than everyone else with those mv. why not just make it core voltage and have direct keying in on the field like everyone else?
Sapphire are trying hard in the motherboard arena, they face such stiff competition however that they would need to focus on getting their pricing down. The Z68 board for instance cost more here than many of the ASUS products, and I dont think it sold very well
I am waiting on toxic or vaporx card from sapphire before buying a 7970. The AMD reference coolers suck, even this one, which I hear is better.
Motherboard looks ok, I like the fact Sapphire seem to be making everything themselves, including their custom bios configurations.
They seem to make good boards and I would buy one, but they seem hard to get in the UK even if I wanted to.
Didnt even know they made motherboards!
Hope they release a good VaporX edition soon. those reference cards dont appeal to me at all.