MSI Big Bang XPower II (X79) Motherboard 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 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 is always something that an X79 based board is going to use more of when compared to a Z77 offering, thus we find the Big Bang at the top of our chart at just under 300 Watts under load. When the clock speed of the CPU has been increased, we see the power draw increased on both idle and load, but still not pushing through 350 Watts.