Power, Heat, And Efficiency
AMD’s modernized GPU has thus-far provided a marginal performance lead over Nvidia’s older part, but power consumption is where it really stands out.
Our overclocked alternative PC reduces full-load power consumption by over 200 W, and we can only credit its lower CPU overclock for 68 W of that reduction.
Heat numbers are a little more deceptive, since the alternative system’s higher GPU temperature happened within the range of its automatic fan controls.
Efficiency is a comparison of energy to work, so it’s good to see the lower-energy alternative PC also producing slightly better performance at stock clocks.
Dividing the performance difference by the power difference proves our theory, with the alternative PC leading the original by 26%. Both builds lost efficiency when overclocked due to the relatively high CPU core voltage required to push the higher frequency settings.