GeForce 7800 GTX ***NOT*** dissipating 200W!

They make noise, too.

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Tzupy
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GeForce 7800 GTX ***NOT*** dissipating 200W!

Post by Tzupy » Wed Jun 22, 2005 5:36 am

According to the Anandtech article, the new 7800 GTX is actually dissipating 9-11W LESS than a 6800U! Well, this is good news, although I'm not sure if they meant a 256MB or 512MB for the 6800U...
So all the hype about the new nVidia cards dissipating over 200W was BS. I thought they would require 120-150W, but it seems the 7800 GTX is lower volted than I expected, otherwise I don't see how could it dissipate less than a 6800U (assuming Anandtech was correct in their measurement).
Update: in the mean time, THG posted their own article, and the power consumption for the 7800 GTX was again listed as less than for the 6800U, but by a smaller margin.

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Post by propheci » Wed Jun 22, 2005 8:09 am

i think the biggest reason for the lower dissipation is the reduction in die size. IIRC, the G70 uses a 110nm process while the 6800s were 130nm.

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Post by acaurora » Wed Jun 22, 2005 8:17 am

now if only i had the $1200 that ZipZoomFly is charging for BFG 7800 GTX x 2 for sli *drool*

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Post by halcyon » Wed Jun 22, 2005 8:44 am

Image

NB! Figures are for the whole system (systems are the same, just video card changed).

According to that, about the same as 6800U/x850XT PE.

So, a relief of sorts, although one would have liked a cut consumption of 20-30%...

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Post by mathias » Wed Jun 22, 2005 9:14 am

I guess they must have started to do something about the leakyness of their 110 nm process. It would be nice if those improvements would also apply to 6600's, but I doubt they will.

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Post by Tzupy » Wed Jun 22, 2005 10:00 am

They are in stock at Overclockers UK, for instance the BFG OC 460 / 1300 for 400 quid + VAT. Well, until I won't see the benchmarks for Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion (sometime in October, I think), I'll keep my 6600GT...

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Post by frostedflakes » Wed Jun 22, 2005 2:32 pm

Good news. I'm also interested to see how ATi's R520 does, as their cards typically draw less power than nVidia's.

I'm really kind of waiting for nVidia and ATi to release and iron out their 90nm/110nm processes. I'd really like to see a mid-range card with good performance, a low-price, and ~30w power consumption under load. Maybe this is just wishful thinking. The 6600GT has the first two, but power consumption is higher than I would've expected from a 110nm process. And unfortunately none of ATi's mid-range solutions (X700 series) can put up descent numbers, or at least nothing comparable to other cards in it's price range from nVidia. Bummer.

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Post by Shining Arcanine » Wed Jun 22, 2005 4:01 pm

Great. Now when does Arctic Cooling come out with a Silencer to support this?

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Post by EasyRaider » Wed Jun 22, 2005 4:56 pm

From TechReport's review:
Subjectively, the 7800 GTX is quieter than both the GeForce 6800 Ultra and the Radeon X850 XT PE, without question.
I have also seen some numbers suggesting it's no louder at full load than 6800 Ultra at idle.

Perhaps it's quiet enough even with the stock fan if you have high ambient noise in your environment, a dampened case, or just aren't very picky. (Yes, that's probably a stretch.)

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Post by Shining Arcanine » Wed Jun 22, 2005 5:49 pm

EasyRaider wrote:From TechReport's review:
Subjectively, the 7800 GTX is quieter than both the GeForce 6800 Ultra and the Radeon X850 XT PE, without question.
I have also seen some numbers suggesting it's no louder at full load than 6800 Ultra at idle.

Perhaps it's quiet enough even with the stock fan if you have high ambient noise in your environment, a dampened case, or just aren't very picky. (Yes, that's probably a stretch.)
I had read that and thought that any noise improvement in stock cooling solutions is a good thing.

Anyway, there is another possibility. It could be quiet enough if you're hard of hearing.

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Post by halcyon » Thu Jun 23, 2005 12:15 am

Image

While system reading and not too accurate, that gives a rough indicator.

The new stock cooling system does not take a PCI/PCI-E slot space, so it's even thinner (both the fan and the fin structure) than before.

I doubt its that much more silent.

At idle it may be less noisy than 6800U (which was horrible, if anyone still remembers):

"Following one from the power draw and core temperature trends the noise generated within the system is also less with the 7800 GTX than the 6800 Ultra, and with a greater variability between idle and load situations allowing it to run much quieter when there isn't too much 3D processing required." - Beyond3D 7800GTX review.

Also, if you look at core temps:

Image

It'll definitely need swapped cooling to get anywhere near SPCR quiet standards.

regards,
halcyon

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Post by Landroval » Thu Jun 23, 2005 2:24 am

propheci wrote:i think the biggest reason for the lower dissipation is the reduction in die size. IIRC, the G70 uses a 110nm process while the 6800s were 130nm.
Yes, but the 7800 is a 300M transistor chip while the 6800 is only 220M. Die size of 7800 is ~625mm^2 and 6800 is ~500mm^2.

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Post by scruzbeachbum » Thu Jun 23, 2005 7:32 am

acaurora: What program/game would actually benefit from having 2 of these beasts?

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Post by acaurora » Thu Jun 23, 2005 7:49 am

BF2, WoW, HL2 ?

I play all those.

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Post by mathias » Thu Jun 23, 2005 4:34 pm

scruzbeachbum wrote:What program/game would actually benefit from having 2 of these beasts?
Boastmark 2006. :)

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Post by joelmusicman » Thu Jun 23, 2005 4:35 pm

acaurora wrote:BF2, WoW, HL2 ?

I play all those.
I thought all of those were processor limited (unless you're talking about running them in HiDef)??

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Post by Edward Ng » Thu Jun 23, 2005 6:46 pm

It doesn't take high def to bog down even an SLI of 6800 Ultras if you're doing 1600x1200 at 8X FSAA and 16X aniso.

-Ed

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Post by acaurora » Fri Jun 24, 2005 6:19 am

and on a big, gorgeous, Dell 2405 24" Widescreen *drool*

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Post by Edward Ng » Fri Jun 24, 2005 1:42 pm

Okay, everyone; by the end of next week, I should be able to give you guys some Power Angel readings from a machine with dual 7800GTX in SLI with a San Diego, a Raptor, an SP1614N, a gig of RAM on an ABIT SLI board and an S12-600.

I decided to skip on the TRD supercharger for my car, and dump some loot on my gaming rig instead. In the end, I actually spend less than I had budgeted for the next few months, and I'll finally be able to run pretty much any game I want at max detail, res, aniso and antialiasing.

Plus, I figured you guys would like to know what the truly extreme end of the power draw measuring stick should reach. I just put in my orders today at NewEgg, ChiefValue and ZipZoomFly (I was able save about $20 by buying across all three stores instead of just from NewEgg; ChiefValue is the same company anyway, but their prices can very a lot between the two; the RAM I got cost nearly $30 more at ChiefValue than at NewEgg!).

Looks like I'll be paying off my charge cards for the rest of this year. :cry:

-Ed

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Post by lenny » Fri Jun 24, 2005 1:48 pm

Good grief, what a setup! What speed is the San Diego?

If I actually have more time to play games I'd be seriously tempted as well :-)

How are you planning on cooling this quietly? Is that where your CSP-MAG pumps come in?

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Post by Edward Ng » Fri Jun 24, 2005 1:56 pm

Who said anything about, "quietly?" :lol: :lol: :lol:

I don't think I can water cool this very well in the P180; it's not particularly easy to mod with its incredible thick steel and the spacing is not quite right to really properly fit or mount a 120mm radiator without modding. I highly doubt any passive water solutions can handle this much heat on their own, too.

I'll think of something... :wink:

-Ed

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Post by lenny » Fri Jun 24, 2005 2:24 pm

Edward Ng wrote:I'll think of something... :wink:
Somebody once suggested using 4 reserators as the legs of a table - just a thought :-)

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Post by acaurora » Fri Jun 24, 2005 11:15 pm

"spend SOME loot"?!!!

2 x 7800 GTX != "SOME L00T".
2 x 7800 GTX = PH4T L00T.

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Post by jamesm » Fri Jun 24, 2005 11:24 pm

^^ haha, seriously.

2x7800 GTX == PH4T LOOT

while(horse_is_dead())
beat_horse();

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Post by Tzupy » Sun Jun 26, 2005 12:36 am

@Edward Ng: first of all, I'm red with envy (or is it green?).
May I suggest to get 2 GB of RAM instead of one? It seems that newer games, like BF2, may benefit from 2GB, especially if you want to run at maximum detail, which is the case. With 1GB you might find yourself limited, not able to unleash the full power of the 7800GTX in SLI.
The problem with 2GB is that with 4x512 you'll have to run at 2T, or get 2x1024 to run at 1T. Corsair have a 2x1024 CAS2 for a reasonable price, but I'm not sure how compatible is with the Abit mobo. If you'll want to overclock the Sandy from say 2.2 to 2.64 (at stock voltage or just a small increase), you can do it from the 'FSB' and keep the memory at DDR400 (in case your memory won't overclock well).

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Post by Edward Ng » Sun Jun 26, 2005 6:40 am

I'm going to use two 512s for now and squeeze the most perf I can out of them until I start hitting games that are happier with over a gig; I'd rather get better perf in most of my games and sacrifice one than speed up one and lose perf in all the others.

Oh I'm definitely not settling for stock voltage on that CPU; 2.8 is my minimum goal and I know that's not happening at stock voltage.

-Ed

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Post by dexton » Mon Jun 27, 2005 3:44 am

Edward Ng wrote:I'm going to use two 512s for now and squeeze the most perf I can out of them until I start hitting games that are happier with over a gig; I'd rather get better perf in most of my games and sacrifice one than speed up one and lose perf in all the others.
hmm, Ive heard that C'n'Q wont work with 3 or more modules. Is that correct? Adding 2 more 512s later would take away the C'n'Q functionality.

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Post by Edward Ng » Mon Jun 27, 2005 9:33 am

Cool n' Quiet likely won't work for me anyway since I'll be jacking up the HTT so heavily.

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Post by lenny » Mon Jun 27, 2005 9:59 am

dexton wrote:hmm, Ive heard that C'n'Q wont work with 3 or more modules. Is that correct? Adding 2 more 512s later would take away the C'n'Q functionality.
Doesn't that affect socket 754 CPUs only? I thought that is because there is only support in the built in memory controller for two sticks (4 banks?) of DIMM.

Found it. Here's the article. One of SPCR's too :-)

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Post by dexton » Mon Jun 27, 2005 10:00 am

Edward Ng wrote:Cool n' Quiet likely won't work for me anyway since I'll be jacking up the HTT so heavily.
Yeah, thats true. You'd probably be forced to use CrystalCPUID for Cool'n'Quiet functionality, because of the OC.

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