Power, heat, cost and noise. Your thoughts?

[Devrij]

I'm with the OP, provided the cooling off the card is good enough that it doesn't sound like a hoover and still has some overclocking headroom, I couldn't care less about power draw. I want as much performance as I can afford, and if I can keep it quiet then that's a bonus.

 

[NirK]

I'm with the OP, provided the cooling off the card is good enough that it doesn't sound like a hoover and still has some overclocking headroom, I couldn't care less about power draw. I want as much performance as I can afford, and if I can keep it quiet then that's a bonus.

I certainly noticed a big difference in noise, heat in case, temps etc. when swapping from 970 > 980ti... but then the 980ti was much faster so swings and roundabouts as they say. 1080 is similar to 970 TDP, but faster than a 980ti, so in the watts (noise + heat) / perf it is a winner.

 

[AlamoX]

i never cared about power consumption for GPUs or CPUs, i only use it for gaming i have an 850watt Gold and only have 1 card, plenty of power to spare, i do not have servers so im not trying to cut cost.
heat dont really care either, it wouldn't bother me running a 100degree GPU if i dont hear it and doesnt trottles or kill the card.
price is super important, i like to see the value of what i buy, im not the kind to be looking after self gratification of having the latest and the shiniest to show off.
noise vital to me, my pc is running 24/7, i do not like to hear it, and i cannot stand coil whine.

 

[Devrij]

I certainly noticed a big difference in noise, heat in case, temps etc. when swapping from 970 > 980ti... but then the 980ti was much faster so swings and roundabouts as they say. 1080 is similar to 970 TDP, but faster than a 980ti, so in the watts (noise + heat) / perf it is a winner.

If I can have my cake and eat it, of course I'd want to dump less heat into my case, but I would rather have a power hungry monster of a card that a cool quiet card that performs similarly to a card that came out a year ago.

 

[D.P.]

The only people that go on about electicity costs are not important so power efficiency is irrelevant are famous - because the people that care about power don't. Are about electrictyncst, they are about heat, cooling and over clocking potential5

 

[chaparral]

My electricity bill is £200+ per month so anything that uses less electricity is great in my books..

I spent a fair bit on home stuff to try keep the electricity bill down
(I.E changed all bulbs to LED's, Replaced all heaters with ones with thermostats & timers, Replaced the electric blankets with ones with timers, Even the kettle been replaced with one that only boils a single cup of water at a time ETC )

 

[Troezar]

I imagine that we'll always be stuck with a certain amount of heat output for a given wattage. If we move on from silicon then I would hope that we'd also get less of the electrical energy converted to heat.

I'd be interested to hear from all the water coolers. Do you notice any difference in heat output before and after watercooling your cards? There will be some losses but if the cards put out 400W of heat energy that will still make your room as hot as when they were air cooled?

 

[chaparral]

Years ago my PC use to draw 320watts just at idle (And I use to leave it on 24/7 )
Now it less then half that amount thanks to lower power CPU's & GPU's ..

 

[Kaapstad]

I imagine that we'll always be stuck with a certain amount of heat output for a given wattage. If we move on from silicon then I would hope that we'd also get less of the electrical energy converted to heat.

I'd be interested to hear from all the water coolers. Do you notice any difference in heat output before and after watercooling your cards? There will be some losses but if the cards put out 400W of heat energy that will still make your room as hot as when they were air cooled?

Water cooling makes no difference to heat output.

 

[D.P.]

Water cooling makes no difference to heat output.

Not exactly true. Rices does use much less power when kept cooler because there us less electron leakage. Tus is why the FuryX came with a water cooler only, to keep the power levels down.

 

[Kaapstad]

Not exactly true. Rices does use much less power when kept cooler because there us less electron leakage. Tus is why the FuryX came with a water cooler only, to keep the power levels down.

You forgot about Maxwell and Pascal which just boost higher instead.

And what happened here - the air cooled Fiji chips are using less power the Fury X

 

[Razor Time]

I just want the biggest, fastest chip around. Heat and power usage are irrelevant to me especially as I slap a block on it.

Performance is always my main priority.

 

[Telecaster]

I obviously want the performance, but I simply can't abide noise, even the quiet GPUs are far too loud when running at 100% usage and the fans are set accordingly.

My Strix fans are way too loud at anything over 45% and it needs 50% fan to keep it under 85c.

By all means give me performance, but don't make it stupidly loud and hot.

 

[whyscotty]

Performance is always my main priority.

This

 

[NirK]

My electricity bill is £200+ per month so anything that uses less electricity is great in my books..

I spent a fair bit on home stuff to try keep the electricity bill down
(I.E changed all bulbs to LED's, Replaced all heaters with ones with thermostats & timers, Replaced the electric blankets with ones with timers, Even the kettle been replaced with one that only boils a single cup of water at a time ETC )

Its your plasmas probably. They use loads of electriciy.

 

[NirK]

If I can have my cake and eat it, of course I'd want to dump less heat into my case, but I would rather have a power hungry monster of a card that a cool quiet card that performs similarly to a card that came out a year ago.

Yes I would rather have the faster card, that is most important thing, but just saying having low TDP card is nice because of the lack of noise and heat. For example a 1080 which is faster than 980ti and also quieter and less heat in room.