Power Testing Based on Atmel Microcontroller

　　Xbitlabs' power consumption test is very professional and can capture the independent power consumption of the graphics card and CPU. It is more valuable for reference than other websites that test the power consumption of the entire computer.

Most media test power consumption methods

　　Most media use this kind of power baby when testing graphics card or CPU power consumption. It is plugged into a socket and then the power supply is connected to the power baby. The power consumption tested in this way first includes the heat generated by the power supply itself (the power conversion efficiency is between 75%-90%), and secondly includes the power consumption of the motherboard, memory and other devices.

Xbitlabs' test tools

    　Xbitlabs' test method is to measure the current on each line of the power supply output. Specifically, eight 30A current sensors ACS713-30T produced by Allegro are used, and then the 8-bit controller Atmega168 produced by Atmel is used for analog-to-digital conversion to receive the signal from the current sensor.

　　Then a USB interface chip FTDI FT232RL is used to output the results to the computer, where the data are recorded and organized.

Testing Tools

　　Since the current is sampled at the output side of the power supply, the power consumption result does not include the heat generated by the power supply itself. [page]

Test screenshots while running Crysis Warhead

Test screenshots when playing Blu-ray HD

Test screenshots when the system is in standby mode

Test screenshots when running OCCT GPU

Test Summary

　　The above five figures use the power consumption test of GTX 560 Ti as an example to show you the test method of Xbitlabs. A considerable proportion of graphics cards and CPUs use this method to measure power consumption. Let's take a look at the test results of some important graphics cards and mainstream CPUs. [page]

Standby power consumption ladder diagram

　　It can be seen that AMD has started to pay much attention to standby power consumption since the HD4000 series, and Nvidia has not consumed much power in standby mode since the GTX200, no matter how high the graphics card performance is.

Power consumption when playing Blu-ray HD

　　The power consumption at this time can basically reflect the maximum power consumption of the graphics card in 2D state. The minimum power consumption is only 8 watts, and it can play high-definition smoothly. It is very suitable as a graphics card for HTPC chassis that does not require high heat dissipation.

　　But we can still see that some graphics cards with abnormal designs have power consumption close to or exceeding 100 watts when playing high-definition.

Maximum power consumption when playing Crysis Warhead

　　The power consumption of HD6990 with the highest power consumption is too exaggerated, close to 400 watts. The power consumption of graphics cards in the 1000-2000 yuan level is concentrated between 100-200 watts. Personally, I will not choose a graphics card with a power consumption of more than 200 watts.

OCCT GPU test power consumption

　　There are not as many graphics cards in this table as before, because Xbitlabs did not run OCCT on every graphics card from the beginning, but HD6990 was run, so why is it not in the table? Because the program could not be started at all, and the graphics card protected itself from power consumption.

　　Some graphics cards have higher peak power consumption in games than OCCT, but most are still higher in OCCT GPU tests.

　　It should be noted that more than 99% of the power consumption of the graphics card is 12V power supply. [page]

CPU default power consumption comparison

　　I forgot the power consumption of a CPU, the default power consumption of Core i7 950, which is 177.82 watts. The power consumption of the LGA1366 interface quad-core CPU is comparable to that of AMD's top quad-core CPU, and 40 watts higher than that of the LGA1156 interface quad-core CPU, while the power consumption of the LGA1155 interface SNB processor is 70 watts lower than that of the LGA1156.

　　When not overclocked, even the CPU with the highest power consumption will generate heat similar to that of an HD5870.

CPU power consumption after overclocking

　　After overclocking, the power consumption of the Core i7 950 CPU can increase by up to 130 watts, which is equivalent to the heat generated by two HD5850s ​​or a GTX580. The power consumption of CPUs of other levels also increases significantly, ranging from 50 watts to 100 watts.

Platform power consumption with different graphics cards

　　The power consumption in the table above is also tested by Xbitlabs, so it is the output power consumption of the power supply, without the waste heat of conversion efficiency. The CPU used is relatively power-hungry, and it is overclocked to 4.1GHz.

　　The test method is to run Furmark and Linpack x64 at the same time, so that the CPU and GPU are fully loaded at the same time.

　　Summarize:

　　The power consumption of 29 graphics cards and 13 CPUs has been listed separately, which should be useful for gamers who want to know how many watts of power they have.

　　For graphics cards with the same core, the power consumption will vary slightly because the customizations of different manufacturers are not exactly the same. For graphics cards, overclocking is not as free as that of CPUs. Generally, players can only increase the frequency slightly in the driver interface, which will not have a big impact on the power consumption of graphics cards (about 10%).

　　As for the CPU, there are many options for overclocking. Overclocking can increase power requirements by as much as 130 watts. If you are using a top-of-the-line CPU and want to overclock it, you should leave more than 150 watts of margin when choosing a power supply.

　　If you choose an SNB processor for your recent computer configuration, the power consumption will be about 100 watts lower than if you choose a computer with the same graphics card platform but LGA1366.

　　Finally, the 12V output of the power supply is used to power the graphics card and CPU. For the same 600W power supply, some 12V can reach 588W, while others can only reach 432W. The difference in 12V is equivalent to the power consumption of an HD5850, so whether you can build an HD5850 CF is completely different.