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Power Consumption
Our exploration of power consumption begins with a look at the loads while running different tasks. Significant improvements were made between when AMD launched its Radeon RX 580 and now, particularly in our multi-monitor and hardware-accelerated video playback workloads. No doubt, refined drivers are responsible.
Even at idle, ASRock's card impresses with a mere 12.2W of power consumption.
But we also see that the Radeon RX 580's higher clock rate imposes elevated power use under load. Our gaming benchmark reflects a roughly 184W average, while the stress test pushes 188W. This is naturally a consequence of the increased voltage needed to sustain more aggressive frequencies.
At a maximum of 1.14V and an average of about 1.06V, there's nothing alarming to report. ASRock goes the conservative route with its Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX580 8G OC. We think enthusiasts will favor that approach over flogging the mainstream GPU with more voltage, heat, and, ultimately, noise. The only drawback is a lightweight cooling solution, which won't allow the GPU to maintain its peak clock rate over time.
Load On The Motherboard Slot
At a peak of 4A through our stress test, ASRock's Phantom Gaming X Radeon RX580 8G OC falls well under the 5.5A ceiling defined by the PCI-SIG for a motherboard's 12V rail. A mere 3.1A during the gaming loop is even more conservative.
If we convert those loads into a percentage utilization of current available on the PCIe slot, it becomes even clearer that ASRock's implementation complies with the specification we've seen other AMD cards run afoul of.
Power Consumption In Detail
Registering a mere 12W at idle, the corresponding graph of current over time remains under 1A across all rails.
Our gaming loop shows how AMD's PowerTune technology keeps a lid on consumption. Although a lot of those spikes are well above the average power use we're reporting, a good power supply should have no trouble handling them.
It may seem counterintuitive, but the stress test reflects much smaller peaks and valleys. Its load is more consistent, and PowerTune has less room for optimization. In short, the card is pegged against its upper limit.
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