Power consumption
We measured the power consumption of our entire test systems, except for the monitor, at the wall outlet using a watt meter. The idle results were measured at the Windows desktop, and we used Cinebench's rendering test to load up the CPUs.

The EY855-II comes in as the new champion in the power consumption tests, although, to be fair, the difference is likely its 275W power supply relative to the 460W unit used for the rest of the systems, including the DFI board.

Noise levels
When I began my testing of the EY855-II, I thought it was quiet, but not significantly more so than other cubes I've tested. One thing I did notice was that the system was significantly louder from the time it was powered on until the OS had loaded, at which point it quieted significantly. As it turns out, the reason for this was the GeForce 6800GT card I used during benchmarking. The fan on the card spins at maximum speed until the video drivers load up and tell it to slow down.

What I didn't realize until I'd pulled the video card was exactly how much of the noise I was hearing was due entirely to the video card. Without the GeForce installed, this system is as close to silent as any system I've ever reviewed, and not by a little bit.

I used a digital sound level meter (Extech model 407727) to measure the noise generated by the system. I held the meter 1" from the front, rear and top of each system in order to measure sound levels. I took care not to place the meter in the direct path of any fans, as this would have artificially inflated the results. Each measurement was taken first at idle, and then again after Prime95's torture test had been running for ten minutes to put a load on the system.

What you see here is a worst-case scenario. The side measurements (which are higher than the others) were from the right side of the case, which has an exhaust vent for the CPU fan. From much farther than an inch away, noise readings dropped below the 40dB minimum reading of the sound level meter.

Subjectively, the EY855-II was simply amazing. At one point, I sat with the system at ear level two feet away. I closed my eyes and strained to hear it, but was unable to do so. The sole exception to this was the seek noises of the hard drive. The rest of the system is so quiet that the hard drive seeks seemed startlingly loud. I can't believe I'm even saying this, but I think the EY855-II is so impressively quiet otherwise that I'd recommend purchasing a laptop hard drive for it.

Unfortunately, a modern graphics card really detracts from this aspect of the system. I found myself wishing that the PCI and AGP slots of the EY855-II were reversed, not to fit a 6800 Ultra, but to offer more room for some sort of passive cooling solution on a mid-range graphics card that would offer decent gaming performance while preserving the noise levels shown above.