This is an open test bed, because the Powenetics equipment essentially requires one. It consists of an MSI MEG Z390 Ace motherboard, Intel Core i9-9900K CPU, NZXT Z73 cooler, 32GB Corsair DDR4-3200 RAM, a fast M.2 SSD, and the other various bits and pieces you see to the right. We're using our standard graphics card testbed for these power measurements, and it's what we'll use on graphics card reviews. MSI GTX 1050 Ti Gaming X (opens in new tab) GeForce GTX 1060 6GB FE (opens in new tab) GeForce GTX 1070 Ti FE (opens in new tab) GeForce GTX 1080 Ti FE (opens in new tab) Gigabyte GTX 1650 Gaming OC (opens in new tab) Zotac GTX 1650 Super Twin (opens in new tab) GeForce RTX 2060 Super FE (opens in new tab) GeForce RTX 2070 Super FE (opens in new tab) GeForce RTX 2080 Super FE (opens in new tab) GeForce RTX 2080 Ti FE (opens in new tab) MSI RX 570 4GB Gaming X (opens in new tab) Sapphire RX 5500 XT 4GB Pulse (opens in new tab)ĪMD Radeon VII 'reference' (opens in new tab)ĪMD Radeon RX Vega 64 'reference' (opens in new tab)ĪMD Radeon RX Vega 56 'reference' (opens in new tab) Sapphire RX 5500 XT 8GB Pulse (opens in new tab) Sapphire RX 5600 XT Pulse (opens in new tab) Radeon RX 5700 'reference' (opens in new tab) Radeon RX 5700 XT 'reference' (opens in new tab)
So for example, the RX 6800 XT roundup shows that many custom cards use about 40W more power than the reference designs, thanks to factory overclocks. If you want to see power use and other metrics for custom cards, all of our graphics card reviews include power testing. We use the reference models whenever possible, which means only the EVGA RTX 3060 is a custom card. We've updated this article with the latest data from the GeForce RTX 3090, RTX 3080, RTX 3070, RTX 3060 Ti, and RTX 3060 12GB from Nvidia and the Radeon RX 6900 XT, RX 6800 XT, RX 6800, and RX 6700 XT from AMD. We've done that with all the legacy GPUs we have from the past six years or so, and we do the same for every new GPU launch. Plug in a graphics card and the power leads, boot the PC, and run some tests that put a load on the GPU while logging power use. You can read our Powenetics project overview for additional details.Ĭorsair 2x16GB DDR4-3200 CL16 (opens in new tab)Īfter assembling the necessary bits and pieces - some soldering required - the testing process is relatively straightforward.
RTX 3070 POWER CONSUMPTION SOFTWARE
Specifically, we're using Powenetics software (opens in new tab) in combination with various monitors from TinkerForge. And by "right way," we mean measuring in-line power consumption using hardware devices. Thankfully, the latest generation AMD Big Navi and Nvidia Ampere GPUs tend to report relatively accurate data, but we're doing things the right way. Depending on the GPU, it can be off by anywhere from a few watts to potentially 50W or more. We've used GPU-Z in the past, but it had some clear inaccuracies. The best and most accurate means of measuring the power use of a graphics card is to measure power draw in between the power supply (PSU) and the card, but it requires a lot more work.
Alternatively, you can measure power at the outlet using something like a Kill-A-Watt (opens in new tab) power meter, but that only captures total system power, including PSU inefficiencies. The easiest approach is via software like GPU-Z, which will tell you what the hardware reports. There are various ways to determine power use, with varying levels of difficulty and accuracy. We're here to press the reset button on GPU power measurements and do things the right way. Measuring performance is relatively easy, but measuring power can be complex. To determine GPU power efficiency, we need to know both performance and power use. How much power do the best graphics cards use? It's an important question, and while the performance we show in our GPU benchmarks hierarchy is useful, one of the true measures of a GPU is how efficient it is.
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