Processor(s): Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 @ 3.6GHz (400MHz FSB x 9) Motherboard(s): ASUS P5K3 Deluxe (Supplied by ASUS) Video Card(s): MSI Radeon HD 2900 XT (Supplied by MSI) Memory: 2 X 1GB Corsair XMS3 DDR-3 1066MHz 7-7-7-21 (Supplied by Corsair) Hard Disk(s): Hitachi 80GB 7200RPM SATA 2 Operating System: Microsoft Windows XP Professional SP2 Drivers: ATI Catalyst 7.4 and DX9c
Using our fancy new DDR-3 test rig we benchmarked our favorite array of games and applications to see which were using more power.
Games were tested at 1920 x 1200 while our benchmarking applications ran at 1024 x 768 for 3DMark05 and 06 and 1280 x 1024 for the upcoming RyderMark. We benchmarked each game and application a total of three times and then averaged the results from the same power level draw test section each time.
Idle wattage sitting in Windows is 227 watts!
Power Used in Games
Supreme Commander players are the most environmentally friendly! If you are playing Sup Com we salute you and give you a pat on the back. Now you can say to those damn FPS players when they make fun of your choice of genre “Hey at least we are working towards a cleaner planet.”
Feel like doing a bit of old school benchmarking? "Tisk tisk" we say, 3DMark05 shows us the maximum wattage followed closely by Prey... we always knew those peeps were trouble.
RyderMark which is on its final beta build also comes in with a max draw of over 400W, hopefully this is addressed before the final version comes out, some how. Futuremark managed to clean up its act to make the newer 3DMark06 more Earth friendly... whether this was intentional or not, who knows, but it is good news for current benchmarkers.
If you cannot draw yourself away from Source-based games such as Counterstrike at least know that your addiction is helping the environment. Lost Cost delivered the best result out of all the FPS games tested but if you are benchmarking on 3DMark06 and feeling pretty happy about yourself you are not out of the woods yet, take a look at our next page.
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