Review: MSI Z77A-G45 Thunderbolt

Power consumption

We evaluate idle power consumption without activating any additional power-saving features. MSI's board doesn't fare too well, coming at in 61W, but manually adjust the BIOS to invoke the 'Eco' mode and, without changing the CPU frequency, the power consumption drops to 49W.

All-core load and gaming power consumption are solid... and not much higher than a board running at stock clocks.