VGA card power dissipation

wumpus · Post by **wumpus** » Fri Jul 08, 2005 11:19 am

As I previously suspected, it looks like the 6600 is the "new" Radeon 9600-- eg, it has the best "bang for the watt" of this generation of video cards. That's assuming you do occasionally play 3d games.

There is a huge leap in power draw (and performance) going from a 6600 to 6600gt though, so be careful!

If you're not a gamer, maybe the 6200 or even integrated graphics. Hard to get lower wattage than integrated graphics.

widman · Post by **widman** » Sat Jul 09, 2005 11:34 pm

perplex wrote:i think the undisputed graphics card for 0% gaming is matrox g550 from what i've read around the internet

Matrox G550 is aged, max DVI resolution only 1280x1024, not support wide screen format at all.

Power consumption wise, it uses much less than ATI Radeon 9250.

Thomas · Post by **Thomas** » Tue Jul 12, 2005 5:26 am

I read somewhere, that DDR2 RAM produces twice the heat, compared to regular DDR.

Do someone know if this is true?

If so, it's not enough to compare a 9600 with a 9800 for example... Also, when a certain graphic chip is choosed, it's also important to look for used RAM types...

Could be interesting to hear some thoughts/experiences about this

phorrj · Post by **phorrj** » Thu Nov 03, 2005 6:46 pm

from the link in the first post of the thread (by MarkC) I noticed that the 8500DV was rated at 16-29W but I was wondering what the 7500AIW itself was actually rated at or is it very similar?

just wondering, thanks

jojo4u · Post by **jojo4u** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 10:26 am

An update for the Geforce 7800 GTX 512.
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/hard ... mverbrauch.

At idle it needs less than the 6800 ultra and the Radeon X1800 series. At load it is by far the most hungry one.

Notice that it is among the most silent cards featuring a reference design. It's compareable to the plain vanilla GTX.
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/hard ... autstaerke

Post by **NeilBlanchard** » Tue Nov 15, 2005 1:42 pm

Greetings,

As far as I can see, the power they list is for the entire system, right?

jojo4u · Post by **jojo4u** » Fri Nov 18, 2005 9:45 am

NeilBlanchard wrote: As far as I can see, the power they list is for the entire system, right?

You are right, sorry I forgot to mention.

Btw, Xbitlabs talks about isolated power dissipation:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/ ... 512_5.html

winguy · Post by **winguy** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 1:31 pm

Are there any figures for ATI Radeon X1300 Series?

Tephras · Post by **Tephras** » Wed Dec 28, 2005 7:06 pm

30.6W peak power consumption for the PRO version.

jojo4u · Post by **jojo4u** » Thu Dec 29, 2005 3:39 am

ATI X1000 Catalyst 5.11 series against Geforce 7800 GTX/GT and 6600GT. ATI lowered the idle power consumption quite a bit but still not on par with Nvidia. Figures show whole system consumption.

http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/hard ... mverbrauch

jojo4u · Post by **jojo4u** » Wed Jan 25, 2006 10:31 am

Radeon X1900 series

Isolated power at xbitlabs.

Whole system power at computerbase. (system config)

jojo4u · Post by **jojo4u** » Tue Feb 07, 2006 6:05 am

Another X-bit labs article about power consumption of current video cards:

SPCR-Forum overview

xbitlabs

Hyphe · Post by **Hyphe** » Tue Feb 14, 2006 3:13 pm

Here's a couple of figures collected through X-bit labs and 3Digest-. Sources can be found in the excel file. Feel free to develop and input more figures.

http://www.wnd.se/htpc/Power-consumptio ... -cards.xls

And the two graphs:

jojo4u · Post by **jojo4u** » Sat Apr 01, 2006 4:02 am

Computerbase.de reviews Geforce 7900 GTX/GT and 7600 GT. Power figures as usual for the whole system.

http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/hard ... mverbrauch

Idle went a 1-2 watt up, load quite a few down.

mathias · Post by **mathias** » Fri Jul 28, 2006 9:54 pm

xbitlabs has power consumption measurements for two 7600GT's, a 7900GT and 7900GTX:

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/ ... xxx_5.html
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/ ... gtx_6.html

Filias Cupio · Post by **Filias Cupio** » Sun Jul 30, 2006 8:30 pm

X-bit labs have a new article comparing current videocards by power consumption and noise. Frustratingly, other than dividing the cards into five categories, they don't give any indication of performance.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/ ... noise.html

Beyonder · Post by **Beyonder** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 1:56 pm

Jeff Atwood had a blog entry that computed the same graphs above. Presumably he used what's been done here as a model (same benchmark used, same format, etc.), but he used updated benchmarks and the latest xbitlabs power report.

Pretty clear trend: Geforce 7xxx series is the most efficient video card available, at least according to 3dMark2006. One thing that still peeves me is that xbitlabs tested an underclocked 7600GT as their 7600GS, which is decidedly invalid, since the 7600GS has a lower core voltage. So the 7600GS likely has a higher efficiency than the number Jeff arrived at.

Beyonder · Post by **Beyonder** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 2:02 pm

Raw graphs for those not interested in blog entry:

kavau · Post by **kavau** » Mon Sep 04, 2006 7:45 pm

I'm looking for a low-power video card for a 24/7 media center pc. So I'm very much intrigued by the NVidia 7300GS's idle power of only 9W.

There doesn't seem to be a fanless model of the 7300GS. However, the 7300LE comes fanless as the Asus EN7300LE. So I'm wondering if I can expect the LE to have a similarly low power consumption. It's a little bit less powerful than the GS (see http://www.nvidia.com/page/geforce_7300.html), but does that automatically mean lower power consumption? Does anyone know of any test reports that address this?

Thanks
Klaus

jojo4u · Post by **jojo4u** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 12:37 am

Geforce 7950GT factory overclocked by XFX. Whole system power, 3DMark 2006 4xAA/16xAF
http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/hard ... mverbrauch

Noise:
The original circuit for the 7900GT had an error, which is fixed by now. It's unclear to me wether newer 7900GT also are fixed.

http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/hard ... autstaerke

vitaminc · Post by **vitaminc** » Thu Sep 07, 2006 2:00 pm

good info!!

jojo4u · Post by **jojo4u** » Sat Nov 11, 2006 4:05 pm

nvidia 8800 GTX

ca_steve http://www.silentpcreview.com/forums/viewtopic.php?p=300246#300246 wrote: From EE Times:

"The GTX8800 adapter card provides twice the performance of NVidia's current graphics adapter. It consumes 145W maximum and 116W on average...."

Computerbase (whole system, as usual): http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/hard ... mverbrauch

Analysis: The 8800 GTX sets new records and the 2D power draw is currently seriously flawed. I heard the card does not downclock at all. A system with this card uses at idle as much power as a system with a Geforce 7800 GT or a ATi Radeon X1800 XL at full load! Judging from the numbers in previous posts this correspondends to 60W idle!

dhanson865 · Post by **dhanson865** » Sat Nov 25, 2006 6:45 pm

Has anyone done a performance list similar to page 5 of this article that is current enough to include the 7900 and 8800 series GPUs and still complete enough to cover all the older DX9 parts?

http://www.anandtech.com/printarticle.aspx?i=2195

It would be nice to have a more current list to use when comparing computing power/DC power and computing power/sound.

It'd be even better if a cheat sheet like that was made with TDP, idle and load measurements right in the same table...

Howard · Post by **Howard** » Wed Jun 06, 2007 6:08 pm

Anybody know about the 8600GT?

carloscs · Post by **carloscs** » Sun Jun 10, 2007 7:13 pm

Howard wrote:Anybody know about the 8600GT?

Here's one. Only the difference from idle to full load is available, and it goes from 40-55W. Ignore the gigabyte passive card test, as they let the card fry and then complain of the card noise/temp/consumption

They also have a "noise" test, but it's only of a very relative usefulness as their systems produce 44+db@idle

jojo4u · Post by **jojo4u** » Thu Jun 28, 2007 3:47 am

After many steps on the wrong direction concerning power draws, there is finally some serious power management available. The 2400/2600 series of ATI clock back quite a lot (and hopefully also scale down the voltage). Idle power draw is even lower than a 7600 GT. Except for the 2600 XT GDDR4 which seems to have a defective BIOS.
Keeping in mind the speed, tey seem to be a pretty good solution for systems which are not for gaming

Whole system power draw as ususal. Link

Flandry · Post by **Flandry** » Mon Sep 03, 2007 6:08 pm

The techreport article linked earlier is useful. I have a question about the Geforce 8 series cards, particularly the 8600 GT(S): how much can these be underclocked without compromising stability, and does that affect the idle power draw at all? I would expect it to because overclocking increases the draw (according to that article), but on the other hand, i thought at idle the GPU circuitry would all be shut down, anyway.

Also, is there any easy way to reversibly undervolt the new Geforce cards? E.g. a provision in the drivers.

jojo4u · Post by **jojo4u** » Thu Nov 08, 2007 5:08 am

German printed magazine testet HD 2400 and HD 2600 cards in issue 22/07. Products here. Power consumption was very good:

idle / 3DMark 06, in Watt

HD 2400 pro: 10-12/16 W
HD 2400 XT: 11-13/21 W
HD 2600 pro: 11/26 W (HIS stands out with 16/29 W)
HD 2600 XT (DDR3): 19-23/36-50 W (Sapphire Ultimate is best both times)
HD 2600 XT (DDR4): 35/40 W -> idle is still broken

jojo4u · Post by **jojo4u** » Thu Nov 15, 2007 1:47 am

About HD 3870 and HD 3850:
German magazine C't measured the following card-only watts idle/load:
3870: 31/81 - 3850: 16/51 - 8800 GT: 35/80 - 2900 XT: 58/152
IAX-Tech measured with no GPU and saw +19 W for a HD3850 and +25 W for a HD 3870.
Anandtech says 40 - 42 W less on idle and comparable at load vs. a 8800 GT
PC Games Hardware puts the idle consumption even lower.
Hothardware.com says, 27-29 W less at idle and 49 - 59 W less at load vs. a 8800 GT.
Vr-Zone says, both cards are comparable to a 8800 GT.
Firingsquad says, at idle it's comparable to a 8600 GTS and 19-21 W better than a 8800 GT. At load, it leans more forward the 8800 GT.
techreport.com says, it's a bit lower than a 8600 GTS and 20-26 W ahead of the 8800 GT. At load, they are comparable to the 8600 GTS.

About the Radeon HD 3850:
Hardtecs4u.de says it's 23 W less than idle than a factory overclocked 8800 GT and on par with a 8600 GT/GTS. At load it's between the 8600 GT/GTS and HD 2600. They where very impressed with the noise (< 1 sone all the time).
Hartware.net says, idle is comparable to 8600/HD 2600 and load is quite a bit better than 8800 GT.

About the Radeon HD 3870:
Legionhardware says, at idle it needs 17 W more than a IGP and 19 W less than a 8800 GT. Load is roughly comparable.

Conclusion: Amazing how different the test results are.

The C't says, not only are vcore and frequency dropped, but the shader core shuts itself down when not needed (e.g. games with vsync).

coopers · Post by **coopers** » Sat Nov 17, 2007 11:00 pm

Wikipedia has power consumption measurements (I expect this is at idle).

Example - the nvidia 85/8600 range:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_8_ ... 0_.26_8600

probably a bit on the favourable side.

VGA card power dissipation

DDR versus DDR2

NVidia 7300GS versus 7300LE