µATX Part 2: Intel G33 Performance Review
by Gary Key on September 27, 2007 3:00 AM EST- Posted in
- Motherboards
Power Consumption
We measured power consumption in three states: at idle sitting at the Vista desktop after 10 minutes of inactivity, and under load while running our Nero Recode 2 and Company of Heroes benchmarks. At each setting, all available power saving options were enabled in the BIOS and operating system to keep power consumption to a minimum, although obviously the biggest difference occurs at idle.
In our previous article, the MSI G33M consumed slightly less power than the X1250 Radeon express platforms but after the latest BIOS update that trend reversed itself. One of the main culprits for this change is the standard CPU voltage switched from 1.200V to 1.300V at idle along with the need to increase DRAM voltage from 1.8V to 1.9V for complete stability. In separate testing the AMD HD 2600XT consumes about 13 additional watts at idle and up to 32 more watts of power under load in Company of Heroes when compared to the onboard video solutions.
We measured power consumption in three states: at idle sitting at the Vista desktop after 10 minutes of inactivity, and under load while running our Nero Recode 2 and Company of Heroes benchmarks. At each setting, all available power saving options were enabled in the BIOS and operating system to keep power consumption to a minimum, although obviously the biggest difference occurs at idle.
In our previous article, the MSI G33M consumed slightly less power than the X1250 Radeon express platforms but after the latest BIOS update that trend reversed itself. One of the main culprits for this change is the standard CPU voltage switched from 1.200V to 1.300V at idle along with the need to increase DRAM voltage from 1.8V to 1.9V for complete stability. In separate testing the AMD HD 2600XT consumes about 13 additional watts at idle and up to 32 more watts of power under load in Company of Heroes when compared to the onboard video solutions.
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sprockkets - Friday, September 28, 2007 - link
Sad how an AMD 7050 board can be had for $80, $40 cheaper with the same features. It is the premium you pay for having dvi.Oddly enough too is that the Gigabyte board you quote doesn't use all solid caps yet the lower end board does. And of course, they didn't bother with solid caps on their new AMD boards period, cause "AMD is second tier."
tayhimself - Thursday, September 27, 2007 - link
Preposterous!! Why do they even bother making this junk without DVI. More and more I find that I don't want a leet board that overclocks 100 Mhz higher but a stable board with the right features. -sigh-8steve8 - Thursday, September 27, 2007 - link
and on top of it, these igp's are not suited well for gaming or videos,,, (the two applications where you may not notice the difference between a digital and analog interface), so they will be used for text/office work... an application where the discrepancies in the user-experience of analog vs digital interfaces with an LCD are undeniable.again, great article.,, but in the end, I sort of wonder why waste ur time exploring these boards when your time is better spent on solutions that deserve our money?
JarredWalton - Thursday, September 27, 2007 - link
I think both of those G33 + SDVO models launched long after Gary had started work on this uATX stuff. Good to see that some people are including the necessary chip, as uATX without DVI is simply unacceptable. Unfortunately, testing some of this stuff takes a lot more time than we would like. We're working to address that, however.jenli - Thursday, September 27, 2007 - link
I would love to see a review of motherboards with igpthat can be converted to raid servers by using the lone
pcie 16x slot.
Have fun,
CK804 - Thursday, September 27, 2007 - link
I'm doing exactly what you mention with an Intel DG965RY. I have an Areca ARC-1210 fitted in there with 3 320GB WD Caviar SE16s in RAID 5.