To test power consumption, we monitor the overall power of the system through a plug-in electricity usage monitor at an idle and load state. This allows us to show the fluctuation between how much power draw the system takes at idle and at load. By monitoring the overall usage of the whole system, it gives an easy comparison if you wish to do the same yourself as opposed to buying very expensive individual testing equipment.
Power consumption actually comes in less than the X58 based system which shows that Intel have done some work on the efficiency of this platform and range of processors. Compared to socket 1155, it still is quite a bit ahead and will end up being a little bit more costly on your electric bill.
The board itself is very nice but not sure it's worth choosing x79 over z68. Reminds me of the situation when a lot of people who spent a lot of money on 1366 systems regretted about not having waited for the 1156 platform. Of course there are people who really NEED extreme systems, but for the majority of us a combination of 2500k and a decent to good z68 motherboard is already more than sufficient.
2600K, 16GB 2133 Mushkin Redline RAM, two GTX-570's in SLI, Intel RST, and a Z68 ASRock Mainboard are doing great for me. Completely happy with it. Do I like this new platform? Oh Heck Yeah!
Of course is something nice and faster …as everything new it comes out.
But i think that i am completely satisfied with my system which includes
1.ASUS RAMBAGE EXTREME 3 X58.
2.INTEL CORE i7 990X 3.46ghz.
3 24 GB RAM by CORSAIR GT DOMINATOR at 2000MHZ.
3.Solid state OCZ VERTEX 3 at 120GB.
4.ASUS RADEON HD 6990 4GB GDDR5.
5.Power supply of CORSAIR AX 1200 WATT.
6.CoolerMaster HAF X Full Tower.
7.Triple monitor by LG D2342P-PN LED 3D 23.
just redo your mem benchmarks with a true multi-threading test like sisoft sandra and see for yourself… 🙂