Gigabyte Radeon HD 7970 OC 3GB Graphics Card Review

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 graphics card 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 wise, we saw some impressive results at 85.5 Watts when idle, and an equally impressive 238.5 Watts when loaded and these are complete system power draw readings.