VR Features

GIGABYTE teamed up with Intersil to develop a software to control and monitor the DES feature on the board and this software also shows how much power is being consumed by the CPU even when you choose not to enable DES. Note that DES does not work when you're overclocking and the panel does not allow you to do so. We decided to test the DES feature under 2 conditions: Idle, and at Half-load. The latter was achieved by using one instance of Orthos (2 cores). These were run with DES enabled and disabled to monitor the differences in power consumed, if any. At the same time, we would also disable CPU throttling only to see how much power savings are to be had from just voltage throttling.

We also measured the power consumption at the wall of the system (sans LCD) to determine if there are still any power savings to be had after factoring in power supply inefficiencies. Obviously, for DES and any similar technology to really provide any savings, they would have to save more than just a handful of Watts at the board side. Without further adieu, the results:

Idle in Windows

Here, we can see that DES saves 15W of power but results in only a mere 1W to 2W of savings by the time PSU efficiency is factored in. Phases 5 & 6 have been shutdown to save some power in addition to clockspeed throttling.

Half-load with 1 Instance of Orthos Running

With 2 cores out of the 4 loaded, the software does not throttle the CPU voltage nor does it shut down any phases. Only when CPU throttling is enabled do we see any power savings. In this instance, it relates to 25W less CPU power consumed and 10W difference at the mains due to PSU efficiencies. Overall, this issue will only exist on quads, as it isn't too hard to load dual core processors with the software technology that is available today. Results may vary though, especially with the myriad of 80+ power supplies available in the market now.

In case you are wondering, we tested DES at full load conditions but found that there were absolutely no differences at all. Due to varying power supply efficiencies with load, the amount of power savings to be had varies largely depending on the setup employed. Obviously, the higher the efficiency of the power supply, the more the savings. If you're thinking that power saving is just dependent on the board and not the power supply, you would be very surprised. Don't skimp on a good power supply and you will see the savings in the long run. That said, there are additional benefits than just the power bill. With power saved on the board alone, you will also have less heat being emitted from the system. Being as heat is an enemy of electronics, one can also expect a more reliable system as well. Overall, a very nice move by GIGABYTE and Intersil.

Intersil's ISL6327 is in charge of the hardware side and LED's are used as a physical indication of the phases (red for OFF, green for ON)