Graphics Card Thermal Power Dissipation

LBadvance · Post by **LBadvance** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 10:46 pm

Does anyone have the links to current generation graphics card thermal power dissipation?

Radeon x300 onwards
Geforce 6200 onwards

Thanks.

I have an x800xl currently and am thinking about downsizing to the x300 and am wondering how much less heat does the x300 have over the x800xl to warrant the performance trade off.

frostedflakes · Post by **frostedflakes** » Thu Jan 26, 2006 12:21 am

X800XL is actually very power efficient, as the GPU is based on a 110nm manufacturing process. I can't seem to find an exact number but I'd guess it's somewhere between 40w and 50w for the entire card, so maybe 25-30w for the GPU itself.

Why are you wanting to downgrade? Do you not game very often? Do you usually game at very low resolution and/or detail? If so, by all means, go with the X300. Otherwise just stick with the X800XL. About the best performance per watt card you'll find other than the 7800GT.

scorp · Post by **scorp** » Thu Jan 26, 2006 5:04 am

I have a list of most of the latest chips ... not all of them however

CHIP / IDLE / LOAD

Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX 512 / 29 / 94.7
Nvidia GeForce 7800 GTX / ? / 80.7
Nvidia GeForce 7800 GT / ? / 56.7
Nvidia GeForce 6800 Ultra / 29.28 / 77.3
Nvidia GeForce 6800 GT / 23.41 / 55.39
Nvidia GeForce 6800 GS / 23 / 54.6
Nvidia GeForce 6800 / 16.96 / 38.88
Nvidia GeForce 6600 GT / 18.47 / 47.89
Nvidia GeForce 6600 DDR2 / 12.3 / 27.6
Nvidia GeForce 6600 / 11 / 23
Nvidia GeForceFX 5950 Ultra / 20.43 / 73.54
Nvidia GeForceFX 5900 Ultra / 27.1 / 59.17
Nvidia GeForceFX 5700 Ultra / 24.21 / 46.4
Nvidia GeForceFX 5700 / 10.16 / 24.61
ATi Radeon X1900 XT / 28.9 / 120.6
ATi Radeon X1800 XT / ? / 112.2
ATi Radeon X1800 XL / ? / 59.2
ATi Radeon X1600 XT / ? / 41.6
ATi Radeon X1300Pro / 18.27 / 30.6
ATi Radeon X850 XT PE / ? / 71.6
ATi Radeon X800 XT PE / 17.62 / 63.23
ATi Radeon X800 XL / ? / 49.4
ATi Radeon X800 Pro / 15.1 / 48.2
ATi Radeon X700 Pro / 16.21 / 33.02
ATi Radeon X300 / 10 / 18
ATi Radeon 9800 XT / 38.22 / 60.27
ATi Radeon 9800 Pro / 30.51 / 47.25
ATi Radeon 9600 XT / 9.07 / 22.72
ATi Radeon 9600 Pro / 8.69 / 18.38
ATi Radeon 8500DV / 16 / 29
S3 Chrome S27 / 14.18 / 23.75

LBadvance · Post by **LBadvance** » Thu Jan 26, 2006 7:40 pm

Wow under load only 18W as opposed to 49.4W.

Im trying to cut back on games as the only game im current playing is wc3.

However the catch is i NEED to run it at my monitor's native res of 1920x1200 at full settings. Can the x300 hypercache cut it?

scorp · Post by **scorp** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 7:53 am

Why not get a 6600 ? It's load is 23W (a tad bigger than for X300), has better performance and it is cheap.

StarfishChris · Post by **StarfishChris** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 9:08 am

Or even cheaper, underclock your GPU with ATI Tool / ATI Tray Tools. My x700 is set to 90/80 mHz in 2D mode, as a result I can run the fan at only 10%. (And it's a pathetic tiny HSF too!)

scorp · Post by **scorp** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 10:00 am

If you underclock it you can also undervolt it

... and that will definitely keep it a lot cooler and silent.

StarfishChris · Post by **StarfishChris** » Fri Jan 27, 2006 10:05 am

scorp wrote:If you underclock it you can also undervolt it ... and that will definitely keep it a lot cooler and silent.

AFAIK the only way to undervolt a GPU is with a hardware mod. No programs nor BIOS give you that option.

scorp · Post by **scorp** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 7:20 am

Not necessarly

.. I undervolted both my 6800GT and 6600GT with BIOS modding (for testing pruposes

); as far as I know the same thing is possible with the X800XL

Shining Arcanine · Post by **Shining Arcanine** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 8:21 am

scorp wrote:Not necessarly .. I undervolted both my 6800GT and 6600GT with BIOS modding (for testing pruposes ); as far as I know the same thing is possible with the X800XL

I had read that undervolting was not possible with ATI GPUs but it was possible with Nvidia GPUs.

frostedflakes · Post by **frostedflakes** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 12:09 pm

BIOS undervolting isn't possible (at least as far as I know) with ATi cards, but hardware mods are. I have a thread about a page or two back in the Cool and Quiet Video section about undervolting my X800GTO.

PS. scorp, just out of curiosity, how low were you able to take the voltage on your 6600GT and 6800GT?

LBadvance · Post by **LBadvance** » Sun Jan 29, 2006 7:38 pm

When underclocking does it make the GPU run cooler? Because i thought that it was when u undervolt is when the heat produced is less.

hvengel · Post by **hvengel** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 5:02 pm

Unclocking has a linear affect on GPU power consumption. Cut the clock freq in half and the GPU will consume half as much power.

Under volting is non-linear and has a bigger affect on power consumption.

JazzJackRabbit · Post by **JazzJackRabbit** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 6:42 pm

hvengel wrote:Unclocking has a linear affect on GPU power consumption. Cut the clock freq in half and the GPU will consume half as much power.

That's actually questionable. I downclock my 6800GT to 200MHz from 400MHz in 2D mode, but my temperatures only go down one, two degrees at the most. So either the card doesn't actually downclock even though all reporting tools say it is, or power draw is not linear, or it depends on particular GPU.

frostedflakes · Post by **frostedflakes** » Mon Jan 30, 2006 8:16 pm

I could try to paraphrase, but it's easier for me to quote.

The heat generated by a processor is from both static and dynamic loads. Basically the static load comes from the resistance of pushing currennt threw a processor (and because of leakage currents in the processor). The dynamic load is caused by the transisters requireing power to be switched on and off. Dynamic load is directly proportional to clockspeed which oif course explains why overclocking a processor produces mroe heat, and also wht intel proessors are much hotter. Anyways, both sources of heat are also proportional to the square of the voltage, so the more you increase the voltage the more heat is being produced.

From this thread.

So basically reducing clock speed only reduces the heat caused by the transistors switching. Although I'd assume this is responsible for a majority of the heat in a semiconductor, I doubt it's responsible for all of it. Also keep in mind that @ 2D/idle most of the transistors of a GPU will be doing nothing. So although you are slowing down how fast they switch, very few are switching to begin with, so the difference will be very minor.