Power, Heat, And Efficiency
BIOS settings often have a greater effect on power consumption than onboard device configuration, and BIOS upgrades often impact the effectiveness of power-saving technologies. Even though we already reviewed it, the BIOS-updated P67 motherboard must be retested.
While the above chart does not indicate the power draw of an idle integrated GPU, it does show all three Z68 motherboards drawing less power than the P67 example. Again, this is likely due to different implementations of power-saving features.
ASRock had the coolest voltage regulator, though none of the boards run excessively hot.
Efficiency is a comparison of work done to energy consumed. The Z68 motherboards benefit most from the one chart where they have a performance lead, and that lead will be further discussed in our conclusion.
