MSI Z77A-GD65 (Z77) Motherboard Review
Andy Ruffell / 13 years ago
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.
Straight out of the box, we see an idle power usage of 72 Watts, which is the lowest we’ve had across the Z77 series so far. At load, we saw the system peak to 222 Watts, which is still extremely low considering some of the components used.
By overclocking and increasing the voltage, we saw the idle power usage rise to 88 Watts, which is still remarkably low. At load, the system managed to stay under 300 Watts with a very attractive 274 Watts being used.
