~HD4850 performance but more efficient

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shleepy
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~HD4850 performance but more efficient

Post by shleepy » Wed Mar 04, 2009 11:33 am

I've read conflicting reports about some Nvidia cards (GTX260, GTS250, 9800GT, 9800+GT, etc.) being more power efficient than AMD HD4850 and performing at least around as well. What is the general consensus about this?

To be more specific, we're talking about power consumption at load.

incorrect
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Post by incorrect » Wed Mar 04, 2009 12:29 pm

this page seems to be pretty to-the-point. the 4850 is one of the more efficient cards you can get, within a couple percent of any other card.

note that the highlighted card there is a 4850x2, the 4850 figures are lower in the graphs.

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Post by FartingBob » Wed Mar 04, 2009 12:38 pm

I find xbit labs have very reliable and consistant VGA power consumption charts.

One of the 55nm GTX260's will sip roughly 44w at idle and 105w at load.
Image
The older 65nm GTX260 will use similar amounts at idle but around 135w load.

Image
The 9800GTX+ at 55nm is very power efficient at very nearly matches the performance of the stock 4850.

I would also wait for the newly announced GTX250, which is basically a rebranded 9800GTX which is basically a rebranded 8800GT(i think, it gets confusing) but is more efficient from the early reviews ive seen, and the same length as the 4850 (most high end nvidias tend to be about 5 feet long these days)

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Post by incorrect » Wed Mar 04, 2009 12:51 pm

and if one can wait until may, the 4750/4770 should be more efficient than anything else on the market at release time.

i'm still sad the 47xx's are set to have a pci-e power adapter, a 40nm gpu in the 4670's power envelope with say 480 shaders would have been perfect for me.

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Post by shleepy » Wed Mar 04, 2009 1:34 pm

incorrect - The nomenclature of the HD4770 even indicates that it will perform somewhere between HD4670 and HD4850. Meanwhile, the tomshardware.com review of GTS250 shows it to perform between the HD4850 and HD4870, and the GTX260 performs at least around as well as the latter.

Thanks, FB!

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Post by incorrect » Wed Mar 04, 2009 2:10 pm

i'm just going on efficiency - guru3d's 4750 preview showed it beating the 4830 and trailing the 4850 by ~7% or so, thus i have to believe the 4770 will sit right at the 4850 level (which makes sense given the speeds it'll launch with). the 40nm process should thus give us a 4850-alike card with much less power drawn.

though right now i'd probably go with a gts 250, due to nvidia's better linux and acceleration support.

my monitor's only 1440x900, so cards this powerful are kinda over my head :)

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Post by ~El~Jefe~ » Wed Mar 04, 2009 7:10 pm

FartingBob wrote:I find xbit labs have very reliable and consistant VGA power consumption charts.

One of the 55nm GTX260's will sip roughly 44w at idle and 105w at load.
Image
The older 65nm GTX260 will use similar amounts at idle but around 135w load.

Image
The 9800GTX+ at 55nm is very power efficient at very nearly matches the performance of the stock 4850.

I would also wait for the newly announced GTX250, which is basically a rebranded 9800GTX which is basically a rebranded 8800GT(i think, it gets confusing) but is more efficient from the early reviews ive seen, and the same length as the 4850 (most high end nvidias tend to be about 5 feet long these days)
You realize a 9800gtx etc is a rebadged 8800gts series right? i wouldnt pay a dime for one at this point. better off buying a 8800gtx 768 ram guy off of ebay at that rate. the 260 216 is performance per watt crown if you need that sort of gaming power.

4830 OC by MSI is the best performance/wattage/price all arounder.

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Post by ~El~Jefe~ » Wed Mar 04, 2009 7:12 pm

incorrect wrote:i'm just going on efficiency - guru3d's 4750 preview showed it beating the 4830 and trailing the 4850 by ~7% or so, thus i have to believe the 4770 will sit right at the 4850 level (which makes sense given the speeds it'll launch with). the 40nm process should thus give us a 4850-alike card with much less power drawn.

though right now i'd probably go with a gts 250, due to nvidia's better linux and acceleration support.

my monitor's only 1440x900, so cards this powerful are kinda over my head :)
the 4770/50 cards havent been made yet :( just a few for reference as far as I know. I hope a good company like MSI will get one and re-do the capacitors and phase power like the OC 4830 I mentioned above. that'd be what goes in my next machine. It still could change a lot by then. They could amp it up a lot and make it power hungry on load, or like the 4850's, make it broke as far as idle wattage and be a power hog.

so far im chugging along on my 3870. Damn. it was 260 dollars a year ago!

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Post by Olle P » Thu Mar 05, 2009 1:42 am

~El~Jefe~ wrote:You realize a 9800gtx etc is a rebadged 8800gts series right?
The 9800GTX+ (now renamed GTX250) isn't! It's a different design that deviates from the 8000-series.

Cheers
Olle

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Post by ~El~Jefe~ » Thu Mar 05, 2009 7:39 am

Olle P wrote:
~El~Jefe~ wrote:You realize a 9800gtx etc is a rebadged 8800gts series right?
The 9800GTX+ (now renamed GTX250) isn't! It's a different design that deviates from the 8000-series.

Cheers
Olle
by ... a whole lot?? or miniscule?

260 216 ftw

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Post by shleepy » Thu Mar 05, 2009 10:30 am

Yes, the 9800GTX+ and GTS250 are based on an old design... but the OP was about power efficiency, and it looks like both of these video cards are more efficient than their predecessors while performing closely to the HD4850. So, I would seriously consider them if I were to get a new video card, given my needs and requirements.

As for GTX260/216 - can anyone post a link with total system power consumption charts where a GTX260 beats the HD4850? I find it hard to believe the accuracy of the xbit labs graphs if I haven't seen results like that in any other review.

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Post by SpeedEuphoria » Fri Mar 06, 2009 9:24 pm

I have a hard time believing that Xbit labs chart also. I have seen a review between GTX 260 216;s 55nm and 65nm and the 55nm drew more power at some instances and less at others. I wish I remember where it was.

I think if your into power consumption, or bang per watt you should wait a while as newer cards will surely be more efficient.

Otherwise the 4830 is currently the best bang for the buck and good performance per watt

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Post by rpsgc » Sat Mar 07, 2009 2:11 am

Olle P wrote:The 9800GTX+ (now renamed GTX250) isn't! It's a different design that deviates from the 8000-series.

Cheers
Olle

Bullpoopie! The 9800GTX is nothing more than a rebadged overclocked 8800 GTS 512MB.

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Post by Tephras » Sat Mar 07, 2009 3:59 pm

SpeedEuphoria wrote:I have seen a review between GTX 260 216;s 55nm and 65nm and the 55nm drew more power at some instances and less at others. I wish I remember where it was.
Maybe you are referring to this review?

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Post by Ant6n » Sat Mar 07, 2009 7:58 pm

http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3523

In the beginning there was the GeForce 8800 GT, and we were happy.

Then, we then got a faster version: the 8800 GTS 512MB. It was more expensive, but we were still happy.

And then it got complicated.

The original 8800 GT, well, it became the 9800 GT. Then they overclocked the 8800 GTS and it turned into the 9800 GTX. Now this made sense, but only if you ignored the whole this was an 8800 GT to begin with thing.

The trip gets a little more trippy when you look at what happened on the eve of the Radeon HD 4850 launch. NVIDIA introduced a slightly faster version of the 9800 GTX called the 9800 GTX+. Note that this was the smallest name change in the timeline up to this point, but it was the biggest design change; this mild overclock was enabled by a die shrink to 55nm.

All of that brings us to today where NVIDIA is taking the 9800 GTX+ and calling it a GeForce GTS 250.
...there was a die-shrink in there, so that'd make it more efficient.

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Post by ~El~Jefe~ » Sun Mar 08, 2009 10:10 am

yeah nvidia is king of dishonesty. has been for years now.

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Re: ~HD4850 performance but more efficient

Post by Luminair » Sun Mar 08, 2009 11:01 pm

shleepy wrote:I've read conflicting reports about some Nvidia cards (GTX260, GTS250, 9800GT, 9800+GT, etc.) being more power efficient than AMD HD4850 and performing at least around as well. What is the general consensus about this?

To be more specific, we're talking about power consumption at load.
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/gts2 ... /18529.png
also http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1374256

and to answer your question, if you're looking for 4850 performance with the lowest power usage, the gts 250 is the way to go

all the kids putting down nvidia for using the same chip so much need to get lives, because last I checked those new-old nvidia chips are still competitive at worst, and superior at best

http://images.tweaktown.com/imagebank/g ... 0_g_08.gif

the numbers speak for themselves, newbs

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Re: ~HD4850 performance but more efficient

Post by rpsgc » Mon Mar 09, 2009 1:18 am

Luminair wrote:http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/gts2 ... /18529.png
also http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1374256

and to answer your question, if you're looking for 4850 performance with the lowest power usage, the gts 250 is the way to go

all the kids putting down nvidia for using the same chip so much need to get lives, because last I checked those new-old nvidia chips are still competitive at worst, and superior at best

http://images.tweaktown.com/imagebank/g ... 0_g_08.gif

the numbers speak for themselves, newbs
"Kids"? ""Newbs"? Talk about an attitude problem. How about you show a little respect for your peers? Don't insult us just because we're not mindless sheep like... some people.

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Re: ~HD4850 performance but more efficient

Post by ~El~Jefe~ » Mon Mar 09, 2009 6:31 am

Luminair wrote:
shleepy wrote:I've read conflicting reports about some Nvidia cards (GTX260, GTS250, 9800GT, 9800+GT, etc.) being more power efficient than AMD HD4850 and performing at least around as well. What is the general consensus about this?

To be more specific, we're talking about power consumption at load.
http://images.anandtech.com/graphs/gts2 ... /18529.png
also http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1374256

and to answer your question, if you're looking for 4850 performance with the lowest power usage, the gts 250 is the way to go

all the kids putting down nvidia for using the same chip so much need to get lives, because last I checked those new-old nvidia chips are still competitive at worst, and superior at best

http://images.tweaktown.com/imagebank/g ... 0_g_08.gif

the numbers speak for themselves, newbs
uh... sure....

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Post by Ant6n » Mon Mar 09, 2009 11:31 am

nodody likes nvidia's dishonesty, but in the end the deciding factor is how much graphics i can get out of a 220 Watts brick. I think it'd make sense to wait a month or so, then we'll see.
It's exciting how much power we get per watt :-)

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Post by shleepy » Mon Mar 09, 2009 1:24 pm

Ant6n wrote:nodody likes nvidia's dishonesty, but in the end the deciding factor is how much graphics i can get out of a 220 Watts brick. I think it'd make sense to wait a month or so, then we'll see.
It's exciting how much power we get per watt :-)
Yep yep. Just curious - what will the rest of your system be? I have a similar goal (power brick and all). :)

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Post by Ant6n » Mon Mar 09, 2009 3:57 pm

i guess it's a little off topic, but still pertains to the ~hd4850 performance in less watts.

The motherboard is one supporting mobile intel core cpu's (yonah, merom on Aopen i975xa-ydg), together with 2.5 hdd's and a 220Watt dell brick. Currently I have a t2050 ([email protected]), but might try a t7400 ([email protected]?).
The system sans graphics uses well below 100 Watts, so an ~80 Watts graphics card sounds very interesting.
The case was originally a retired hifi cd player, I don't have the time to mod it, so I guess I'll get one of 'em htpc cases (now that they are decent looking).

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