Environmental Green is the new trendy new colour to paint yourself and your company these days, and computer equipment makers have been paying as much lip-service as anyone else.

The Asus EAH4850 uses a single 6-pin PCI Express power connector in addition to the power it draws from the x16 PCI Express slot. This is a little less complicated than some of the high-end videocards that have been arriving at PCSTATS test labs lately... which demand the newer 8-pin PCI Express connector.

Let's take a look at how much power the Asus EAH4850 draws in a typical computer system.

Total System Power Draw Comparisons

Here's how the Asus EAH4850 videocard stacks up in real life against a couple different cards We have no way of directly measuring video card power draw, so PCSTATS measures total system power draw and compares that in 3D loaded (max value recorded in 3DMark06) and idle states (at Windows desktop).

The power supply used in each test is an A-PFC compliant PC Power and Cooling 750W model.

Videocard Power Consumption (Total System Power Draw) Idle at Desktop Points Ranking Palit HD4870 X2 2GB 177 Asus EAH3870 X2 1GB TOP/G/3DHTI/1G/A 153 Asus EAH3870 X2 1GB TOP/G/3DHTI/1G/A (Crossfire) 222 MSI R3870X2-T2D1G-OC 165 Diamond Viper Radeon HD 2900XT CrossFire 195 Asus EAH4850 HTDI/512M 120 Asus EAX1900XTX 2DHTV/512M/A 160 Asus EAX1950PRO/HTDP/256M/A 150 nVidia Geforce 9600GTs in SLI 166 Asus EN9600GT Top/HTDI/512M 152 Palit Geforce 9600GT 512 151 MSI NX8800GTX-T2D768E 196 MSI NX7950GX2-T2D1GE 183 MSI NX7900GTX-T2D512E 165 Gigabyte GV-NX76T256D-RH 140 3D Loaded: Points Ranking Palit HD4870 X2 2GB 421 Asus EAH3870 X2 1GB TOP/G/3DHTI/1G/A 390 Asus EAH3870 X2 1GB TOP/G/3DHTI/1G/A (Crossfire) 610 MSI R3870X2-T2D1G-OC 330 Diamond Viper Radeon HD 2900XT CrossFire 549 Asus EAH4850 HTDI/512M 202 Asus EAX1900XTX 2DHTV/512M/A 333 Asus EAX1950PRO/HTDP/256M/A 252 nVidia Geforce 9600GTs in SLI 313 Asus EN9600GT Top/HTDI/512M 220 Palit Geforce 9600GT 512 221 MSI NX8800GTX-T2D768E 345 MSI NX7950GX2-T2D1GE 315 MSI NX7900GTX-T2D512E 277 Gigabyte GV-NX76T256D-RH 213 (OC) 3D Loaded: Points Ranking Palit HD4870 X2 2GB 426 Asus EAH3870 X2 1GB TOP/G/3DHTI/1G/A (Crossfire) 630 MSI R3870X2-T2D1G-OC 339 Asus EAH4850 HTDI/512M 231

[*This figure represents total system power consumption in Watts, either with the system at idle, or the peak value recorded while running 3DMark06. ]

Here we see the fruits of AMD's labour. Under load power draw goes up from 120W to 202W, again making the Asus EAH4850 a very low-wattage card. During overclocking the graphics card has minimal impact on power draw, and total system power draw sits at a low 231W, particularly when compared to that dual Asus EAH3870X2 Crossfire system and its 630W peak power draw!!

Speaking of overclocking, PCSTATS overclocking test results are up next!

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