Interesting review over at xbitlabs.

[Ackelind]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/other/ ... undup.html

A 1000W PSU roundup. The most interesting part is the first page with the two monster systems. The power draw is actually calculated from the PSU, not from the wall. The AMD Quad-FX system with two 8800GTX in SLI actually used over 600W of power, and now nvidia has released the 8800Ultra which is another 30-40W per card. This is also just stock speed and not overclocking.

Seems like there is a market for 1000W power supplies after all, which frightens me. It shouldn't be!

There is one rule that describes the difference between the goal and the means in a succinct and clear way: you don’t want a hammer, but you want the nail in the wall. The hammer is just a means to get the nail into the wall, acceptable as far as there is no other, better, means. Yet the goal is the nail rather than the process of hammering it in. A 10kg hammer wouldn’t be an achievement of the hammer maker. It would only be a trouble if you tried to bang nails in with it.

The same goes for power supplies. A high-wattage PSU is only a means rather than a goal. It is the means to power the PC up. So, a 1000W PSU should not be considered an achievement. It is rather an inevitable evil – nails have become so big these days that you do need a 10kg hammer to hang a picture on the wall.

The worst part about it is that (atleast) the 8800-series is lacking any energy saving features in 2D. The Core 2 Quad SLI rig drew a mighty 300W just displaying the windows desktop. Considering how long people leave their computers on (when I had a desktop computer, it was on 24/7), this is indeed significant.

[DanW]

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/other/ ... undup.html

A 1000W PSU roundup. The most interesting part is the first page with the two monster systems. The power draw is actually calculated from the PSU, not from the wall. The AMD Quad-FX system with two 8800GTX in SLI actually used over 600W of power, and now nvidia has released the 8800Ultra which is another 30-40W per card. This is also just stock speed and not overclocking.

Seems like there is a market for 1000W power supplies after all, which frightens me. It shouldn't be!

There is one rule that describes the difference between the goal and the means in a succinct and clear way: you don’t want a hammer, but you want the nail in the wall. The hammer is just a means to get the nail into the wall, acceptable as far as there is no other, better, means. Yet the goal is the nail rather than the process of hammering it in. A 10kg hammer wouldn’t be an achievement of the hammer maker. It would only be a trouble if you tried to bang nails in with it.

The same goes for power supplies. A high-wattage PSU is only a means rather than a goal. It is the means to power the PC up. So, a 1000W PSU should not be considered an achievement. It is rather an inevitable evil – nails have become so big these days that you do need a 10kg hammer to hang a picture on the wall.

The worst part about it is that (atleast) the 8800-series is lacking any energy saving features in 2D. The Core 2 Quad SLI rig drew a mighty 300W just displaying the windows desktop. Considering how long people leave their computers on (when I had a desktop computer, it was on 24/7), this is indeed significant.

300W? OK, makes a mental note note ever to consider to buy an 8800!

Seems a bit of a stupid thing to not have any power saving in 2D mode, not everyone is going to need 3d power when on the desktop, I'm guessing Vista is going to need more than XP, but still...

[bendit]

I don't think they made the case at all. They did make the case for 600w and 700w PSUs. Don't forget that these systems are rarities at that. btw Vista has very good power management tools if you use them. Its very easy to put your computer to sleep and dramatically reduce power consumption, but still keep it on 24/7.

[Tzupy]

According to an article at Guru3D, the 8800 Ultra only draws ~6W more (not 30-40) than the 8800 GTX: http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/428/6/
The reason may be that the Ultra GPU is a new revision, which may not only allow for higher clocks, but also a bit lower power (per MHz).
This could be good news, because nVidia will have to use the revised GPUs in 8800 GTXs and GTSs too, so the newer cards with revised GPUs could run a bit cooler.

[mr. poopyhead]

Here are the PSU power consumption numbers (using a Tagan TurboJet TG1100-U96; we measured its power draw from the wall outlet and multiplied the result by this PSU’s efficiency factor, about 0.83)

this article ASSUMES an 83% efficiency... i may not be giving 1kW PSUs enough credit, but that seems a little high.

but it's nice to hear at least one voice of reason out in the wilderness of computer hardware sites... kudos to xbit.

[Ackelind]

Here are the PSU power consumption numbers (using a Tagan TurboJet TG1100-U96; we measured its power draw from the wall outlet and multiplied the result by this PSU’s efficiency factor, about 0.83)

this article ASSUMES an 83% efficiency... i may not be giving 1kW PSUs enough credit, but that seems a little high.

but it's nice to hear at least one voice of reason out in the wilderness of computer hardware sites... kudos to xbit.

Well, they did test the PSU and tested it for efficiency, so I guess they took a number out of the graph that was close to the point wherey they ended up. So they did not "assume" just out of the blue. The Tagan does have about 82-84% efficiency over the range they measured their systems.

According to an article at Guru3D, the 8800 Ultra only draws ~6W more (not 30-40) than the 8800 GTX: http://www.guru3d.com/article/Videocards/428/6/
The reason may be that the Ultra GPU is a new revision, which may not only allow for higher clocks, but also a bit lower power (per MHz).
This could be good news, because nVidia will have to use the revised GPUs in 8800 GTXs and GTSs too, so the newer cards with revised GPUs could run a bit cooler.

The 8800Ultra seem to be available in two different revisions. One new revision, and one "old" which is basically just an overclocked GTX. The latter one does indeed draw more power.

I don't think they made the case at all. They did make the case for 600w and 700w PSUs. Don't forget that these systems are rarities at that. btw Vista has very good power management tools if you use them. Its very easy to put your computer to sleep and dramatically reduce power consumption, but still keep it on 24/7.

The 8800GTX does draw more power in IDLE than for example a 7900GT does at full load! Even if those systems are rarities, they are not far from what gamers assume they need, and the articles do not even consider the case of serious OC. People buying a rig like that are not likely to run it at stock speed. I'm stating this because a few weeks ago, I didn't even think it was possible to build a rig that draws more than 500W. It does indeed seem possible and I don't like what I see.

If you hibernate your computer it isn't likely to do any work. People usually leave their computers on for downloading or seeding of torrents and such, for which the computer must be on, and not in hibernation.

[Denorios]

Tell me about it. I recently bought an 8800 GTX for my system, and the increase in idle temperature in the cooling loop is quite noticeable. I'm not sure my reserator could actually cope with both CPU cores and the GPU running at full bore.

What puzzles me is why Nvidia don't provide any support for power saving. The NTune utility allows you to adjust the memory and GPU core clock from within windows, so it ought to be easy to write a routine to downclock the card when its not under load.

[Ackelind]

They'd better have a good reason for it. 2D underclocking and more features have been used for a few generations of cards now, and CPUs are implementing it very good, so what changed now? I don't have an answer to that, I hope someone does.

[Mr Evil]

They'd better have a good reason for it. 2D underclocking and more features have been used for a few generations of cards now, and CPUs are implementing it very good, so what changed now? I don't have an answer to that, I hope someone does.

Perhaps they noticed that the people who buy these high-end cards buy them regardless of power saving features?

[jammin]

I think it's also worth noting that the system that draws over 600W is a AMD Quad FX based system, which is extremely rare and not really a viable platform in general.

The Intel system in comparison uses less than 500W.
Unless you are looking at a Quad SLi system, then 1000W still seems rather unnecessary.

[niels007]

I must say that Coolerm... err Enhance is really quite good with just 830rpm fan speed up to 500W DC! Its also really amazingly efficient. Good engineers there at Enhance!

[Ackelind]

They'd better have a good reason for it. 2D underclocking and more features have been used for a few generations of cards now, and CPUs are implementing it very good, so what changed now? I don't have an answer to that, I hope someone does.

Perhaps they noticed that the people who buy these high-end cards buy them regardless of power saving features?

Previos high-end versions have all incorporated it. Why drop it now?

I must say that Coolerm... err Enhance is really quite good with just 830rpm fan speed up to 500W DC! Its also really amazingly efficient. Good engineers there at Enhance!

830rpm.. that is abot where my 430W S12 used to idle.. it could actually be of close-to-SPCR-standards!

[Mr Evil]

Previos high-end versions have all incorporated it. Why drop it now?

I'm guessing that it made no difference to sales. The fastest cards are aimed at gamers and the like, who would be more likely to see the insane power consumption as a mark of pride, to go with their 1kW PSUs. I would expect most people who care about power consumption would disregard these cards on the strength of the maximum power consumption alone, even if it did drop to reasnable levels when idle. Also, it's not like nVidia have any real competition at the high end now, so they can get away with a lot less care in the design.

[Ackelind]

I'm guessing that it made no difference to sales. The fastest cards are aimed at gamers and the like, who would be more likely to see the insane power consumption as a mark of pride, to go with their 1kW PSUs. I would expect most people who care about power consumption would disregard these cards on the strength of the maximum power consumption alone, even if it did drop to reasnable levels when idle. Also, it's not like nVidia have any real competition at the high end now, so they can get away with a lot less care in the design.

Does anyone know if this is only true for the 8800-series or if it is true for the whole 8X00 series? Then it not only a problem for high-end gamers. It is also a very simple function, and it should be even easier to implement in the 8-series since they support independent processor/shader clocks.

It is very enviromental-unfriendly to just skip out on such an easy function.

[Oleg Artamonov]

Does anyone know if this is only true for the 8800-series or if it is true for the whole 8X00 series?

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/ ... gts_7.html