Power consumption and overclocking
Idle power consumption is defined as the system sitting on the Windows 7 desktop for 10 minutes. The 80W-ish rating is pretty good considering the six-core CPU and 5800-series graphics card.
2D load is running is determined by running the media-encoding tests and noting the highest power-draw, at the wall, from a watt-meter.
3D load is running Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 for five minutes and determining peak power-draw.
The Crosshair IV Formula does well when one factors in all the bells and whistles on the board.
Overclocking
You probably aren't considering the Crosshair IV Formula if running at default speeds: ASUS has a number of cheaper boards that'll run high-end four- and six-core chips.
ASUS provides an auto-overclocking feature in the BIOS - 3.7GHz and 233MHz clock - and a Windows-based system that mirrors much of the BIOS. We overclock by delving into the BIOS, adding 10 per cent extra voltage on to the most important lines, dropping the multiplier to 6x to bring the board's qualities into focus, and then cranking up the base clock.
We managed to hit a 300MHz base clock that loaded straight into Windows. Failing a few Prime95 iterations later we had to drop the clock to 275MHz to ensure absolute stability.
