Power Consumption And Temperatures
Power Consumption
For our first round of testing at stock settings, we enabled power-saving features on all three rigs. When it came time to overclock the FX-6300, though, we turned those options off for greater stability and performance consistency.
AMD certainly has a long way to go in terms of reducing power consumption and bolstering efficiency, something Intel pours a ton of money into as it courts the mobile space. And that’s really the only downfall of today’s FX-based gaming PC. Not only is energy wasted, but we also end up with more heat to contend with and fans that make more noise in the process.
Peaking under 3400 RPM, the boxed AMD cooler wasn’t terribly distracting, but it does host the noisiest fan in the system, both at idle and under load. It’s certainly more abrasive than Intel’s boxed solutions. On the bright side, that also means the cooling solution on EVGA's GeForce GTX 760 was far quieter and more capable under load than last quarter’s PowerColor PCS+ AX7870 Myst Edition. Granted, it was also housed in a much larger enclosure with more airflow, and not in a mini-ITX box.