e8400 @3.8 & 5870 only pulling 250w at load normal?

[PoorBehavior]

I picked up a Sapphire 5870 in the recent sale to replace my aging 8800gt.
I was confident that my Antec Earthwatts 380 could handle it but figured I would be pushing the cap on the PSU at load or at least be close.
Using a KillAWatt I was surprised to only be drawing about 20 more watts at idle and at load I have not gone over 250 watts, total system power. I am using onboard sound with 4gb of ram and only one HD and DVD drive. I also have a TV Tuner card.

I checked my KillAWatt with a mutlimeter so it seems to be reading correctly, do these numbers seem low? I did not use Furmark, I did use Fallout LV and Halflife 2, both while watching TV through my tuner on my second monitor.

Huge improvement over the 8800gt though, I might put my upgrade off for a while after seeing how much of an improvement the 5870 is over my 8800gt in real life usage.

 

[Zero82z]

Without knowing what is actually in your system, it is impossible to judge whether or not the Kill-A-Watt readings seem realistic.

 

[merliwolf]

Actually sounds about right. The Radeon 5870 has a very low idle power consumption as you just stated. The load can be pretty high especially with furmark, but I think you'll be fine on a general basis under normal loads.