GIGABYTE Z97X-Gaming G1 WiFi-BK Intel Z97 Motherboard Review

System Power Consumption

The GIGABYTE Z97X-Gaming G1 WiFi-BK is the most power hungry system to come across my bench for the Intel Z97 chipset motherboards. Sitting idle, the G1 Gaming motherboard was pulling 77 Watts at the wall, 37.5% more than the lowest motherboard I have tested which is pulling only 56 Watts at the wall. Once I put a load on the CPU as well as the whole system, it was still sucking down more power. Loading up the Intel Core i7-4770K with the AIDA64 system stability test the Z97X-Gaming G1 WiFi-BK was pulling 163 Watts while the next Itnel Z97 motherboard was pulling only 149 Watts and the lowest was pulling 29 Watts less at 134 Watts. While under a full system load, the GIGABYTE Z97X-Gaming G1 WiFi-BK was pulling 250 Watts at the wall while the next highest motherboard was pulling 239 Watts. I’m not surprised that the GIGABYTE Z97X-Gaming G1 WiFi-BK was pulling more power, it has a number of components added to it that the other boards do not. Features like the PLX chip, Creative Sound Core 3D, Intel Wireless AC, and dual NIC’s all add to the power draw of the system. If you’re trying to go green the GIGABYTE Z97X-Gaming G1 WiFi-BK may not be the best bet, but if you’re building a hardcore gaming rig, power consumption likely isn’t your main concern.