Motherboard Comparison

We wondered if there might be a big difference in energy consumption among motherboards built around the AMD 690G chipset. For purposes of comparison, we also looked at the MSI K9AG Neo2-Digital motherboard, the equipment on which matches the Gigabyte motherboard exactly, except that it comes in standard ATX form factor instead.

We used the MSI K9AG Neo2 Digital as a point of comparison

Gigabyte and MSI motherboards compared

The MSI motherboard consumes about 14 W more when idle, primarily because Cool and Quiet did not work - despite the vendor's claim of a state-of-the art BIOS. At full load, the MSI motherboard consumed an additional 6 W, a difference that we attribute to its built-in features such as its network and Firewire chips.