Power Consumption
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.
Given this board is all about the highest level of performance, we are not surprised to see that it has some of the highest power readings that we have seen at stock speeds. Surprisingly though the increase in power when overclocked was not as great as we expected with only ~15W increase in consumption at both idle and load. This shows that the board is very efficient on its consumption at higher processor frequencies.
Gigabyte has always been my favourite brand of mobo. now if only they would jack up their software suite to Asus standards. What puzzles me is the inclusion of the eSata plugin board. Who the hell uses eSata? I’ve yet to meet anybody who does. If they removed that superfluous thing they could drop the boards price by a few bob.
Gigabyte is all i use in my builds.They look so damn good and the quality is superb.I agree with wayne to a point,I have never used esata,But hey nothing wrong with having extra features available just incase.;)
There are pro’s and con’s of eSATA, mainly it is one of those interfaces that generally doesn’t get used by the vast majority of people, but there are a number that can see a benefit. Take myself for example, I build and fix PCs as well as writing reviews on here and to save having an open system on my desk, I use the eSATA interface to conenct up hard drives to my system for testing and/or data backup.
Think of it a little like FireWire 400/800 that interface again is another that many didn’t see the need for but some did use, for the likes of hard drives and video cameras (pre USB 3.0) due to its slightly faster data transfer speed.
On the bright side, you could say that at least Gigabyte didn’t put the eSATA on the rear I/O, leaving space for more USB 3.0 and the display outputs.