AMD A85X Mobo Roundup: ASRock, Gigabyte, Asus
Total System Power Consumption
We monitored the power usage of each system while benchmarking and testing, using a Watts Up Pro power meter. Since all components and test regimes are identical except for the motherboard, this helps isolate motherboard power draw at idle and under a heavy load. Please note that this is total power consumption for the whole system (monitor excluded), not just the motherboard. For reference, the A10-5800K APU is a 100W TDP part.
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On each motherboard, idle and peak power consumption are within spitting distance of the numbers generated in our Virgo Desktop Experience tests, which had the A10-5800K on an Asus F2A85-M Pro with 8GB of RAM. That test setup had peak power draw of 139W and idled at 48W--closest to the Asus F2A85-V Pro in our roundup. The Gigabyte board drew the least amount of power by a slim margin compared to the Asus, while the micro-ATX ASRock board was consistently more power hungry than either, surprisingly.
