Power And Temperature Benchmarks
Let's start with our power consumption benchmarks. We performed this test using an AMD 785G-based motherboard and Athlon II X2 240e CPU combo so that idle power was as low as possible. Load benchmark readings were taken after a five minute Furmark stability test at 1280x1024 with 8xAA applied:
It's hard not to notice the massive power draw of the GeForce 9600 GSO, even surpassing the overclocked GeForce 9800/8800 GT.
It also surprised us how little power the GeForce 9600 GT uses under load, as we expected a much higher power draw from that card. Our sample is based on the 55nm G94, but even so, the results are impressive.
Notice how the new GeForce GT 240 boasts very low idle power in both of its GDDR5 flavors. Our results are even more notable when you consider that these cards are factory overclocked. The Palit Sonic Edition does use more power under load due to its 1GB GDDR5 frame buffer.
Now let's look to the GPU temperature benchmarks:
We can see that the passively-cooled GeForce 9600 cards are at a disadvantage here, but the new GeForce GT 240 cards are sporting some low temperatures. Once again the Palit card is a little hotter, perhaps related to the different cooling solution used.
