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Battle of the GPUs: Is power efficiency the new must-have?
- Thread starter Gregster
- Start date
Samsung 830.
Soldato
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You said overclocking makes them more inefficient, which is true, and that because of this anyone that wants an Nvidia card because of its efficiency shouldn't overclock.
My point was that anyone that buys AMD for bang-for-buck shouldn't buy stuff that reduces the bang-for-buck value (which the things I mentioned would do).
How is that hard to follow? General theme, people that buy something because of a reason, shouldn't do something counter productive to that reason.
Seems the same logic to me.
Soldato
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Ranger talking nonsense again 
Soldato
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With hilarious results
Not actually laughed reading a forum for a long time, but the previous page changed all that
I care about it. Always have.
I went from a single 780 to an impressive 980 SLI setup and loving it. My 980's are silent and very very quiet when the fans do have to kick in. I did upgrade my PSU though, I went from a Corsair 850W to a 1000w, not because I thought I needed it, but everyone knows over time PSU's become less and less efficient, so my 850W from a few years ago is not going to be 850W today so it was time to replace and also with the extra wattage it gives me room for any additional upgrades.
I went from a single 780 to an impressive 980 SLI setup and loving it. My 980's are silent and very very quiet when the fans do have to kick in. I did upgrade my PSU though, I went from a Corsair 850W to a 1000w, not because I thought I needed it, but everyone knows over time PSU's become less and less efficient, so my 850W from a few years ago is not going to be 850W today so it was time to replace and also with the extra wattage it gives me room for any additional upgrades.
Soldato
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Sorry, but I don't recall having any discussion with you regarding "bang for bucks" or "buying decision" or "AMD cards" with you...all I said was people that overclock obviously care more about performance than efficiency, otherwise they wouldn't do it.
I'm not saying improvement in efficiency is not a good thing, but for people making too big a deal out of the lower power-consumption who in turn would use high voltage to push as high overclock as possible on their graphic card is as contradicting and unconvincing as someone preaching the benefit of being vegetarian while chowing down huge piece of chicken thigh.
It is what it is...I simply don't see the need to overly hype up about lower power consumption, especially when considering it is at the cost of holding back performance improvement (barely faster than last gen cards).
One could just as easily highlight the negativity on lack of progression in performance as the positivity on the improvement on efficiency...it's all simply down to point of views or how it is perceived.
And please stop the goalpost shifting and turning this into an Nvidia vs AMD thing, when my analysis and opinions were specificially regarding efficiency and performance and their relationship in the context of graphic card (regardless of what brand it is, the same principle still applies).
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Not actually laughed reading a forum for a long time, but the previous page changed all that
lol glad i could make your day a bit better
Soldato
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Why not go a step further and buy an i3.. jeez people need to lighten up. People have choice to buy what they want and spend what they want.
Using the power saving extreme to win an argument that has substantial gains is pathetic. Its similar to delaying that upgrade as your waiting for the next best iteration of performance.
If your going all in on efficiency - don't overclock! Buy a SFF mobile lightweight with expensive quiet components and then spend weeks digesting which £90 saving is going to fund something else on energy saving. Turn on all the power saving features and don't forget that super LED bulb you just bought for £8 to light up your energy saving room!
Then spend less time on your computer as this too is energy saving!
Thanks marine, I have read further - caught up and agree!
It does make me chuckle how Price/performance was the defacto when AMD had that covered and now nVidia have it covered with the 970, it is no longer valid and nobody (or at least the outspoken) no longer see it as valid.
Soldato
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Its a nice bonus to have Greg. When I dabbled with mining it was a good feature, back then though nvidia sucked for it. 
I would however snap your hand off for any of the top nvidia cards, I enter all these competitions to 'like' and 'share' on facebook and get naff all!
I would however snap your hand off for any of the top nvidia cards, I enter all these competitions to 'like' and 'share' on facebook and get naff all!
Soldato
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"Look to the title of the thread"...It does make me chuckle how Price/performance was the defacto when AMD had that covered and now nVidia have it covered with the 970, it is no longer valid and nobody (or at least the outspoken) no longer see it as valid.
"Look at who created the thread"
"Look back at Greg"...
Thought this thread is about power efficiency, not about bang for bucks or what card to buy...so you are encouraging me and everyone else to go off topic?
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Permabanned
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AMD still have the BFB with the 290X, better performance, better games (Ubisoft) and better built boards that don't have endemic coil whine.
BFB lies with the GTX780's
"Look to the title of the thread"...
"Look at who created the thread"
"Look back at Greg"...
Thought this thread is about power efficiency, not about bang for bucks or what card to buy...so you are encouraging me and everyone else to go off topic?
Not sure what you are trying to say but I found the original article an interesting read. I live in a house with 3 women, so the last thing I could do is save electric with hair straighteners, showers, hairdryers, lights, etc running all the time. I care about heat though and knowing what the heat was like being pumped out from 3 Titans in the Summer, I would certainly swap those out for 3 cooler running cards and if I can save some electric for the family, that's a plus
AMD still have the BFB with the 290X, better performance, better games (Ubisoft) and better built boards that don't have endemic coil whine.
Wouldnt say coil whine should be a decisive factor on which card to choose. But thats subjective...
Not sure what you are trying to say but I found the original article an interesting read. I live in a house with 3 women, so the last thing I could do is save electric with hair straighteners, showers, hairdryers, lights, etc running all the time. I care about heat though and knowing what the heat was like being pumped out from 3 Titans in the Summer, I would certainly swap those out for 3 cooler running cards and if I can save some electric for the family, that's a plus
He's trying to call you out on derailing which is stupid if you ask me. Since when were people that anal about something unless they had a personal grudge?
After all that text I read through, It was the "whatever" that got me
On topic, I think like most people I would much rather prefer a 20% faster card that used more electric than a 5% faster card that was more efficient.
I do think though that with more efficient cards comes faster cards eventually, I just don't know why amd have nothing to release to compete on newer tech right now.
It does make me chuckle how Price/performance was the defacto when AMD had that covered and now nVidia have it covered with the 970, it is no longer valid and nobody (or at least the outspoken) no longer see it as valid[/COLOR].
I chuckled as all Nvidia users are ecstaticbecause the 970 price point looks extraordinary amazing when it's not-by a long shot, it only looks fantastic because Nvidia have been 'milking' their customers since I don't know when.
I'm not bashing Nvidia for 'milking'-the Nvidia brand is that strong, they can do it where as AMD can't get close brand awareness wise-although they are getting better year on year, hopefully they can claw some more back, it can only better future gpu's for all.
AMD has been doing it for years and years now, Nvidia don't have the price covered, they have a long way to go in regards to bbfb.
Performance wise-they have a small/large performance advantage covered but they also lose out in similar fashion against the 290-game dependant.
BBFB:
1 x GALAX GeForce GTX 970 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card - OEM (97NPH6DT6XTZ) £247.99
-~£20 game voucher=~£227.99
1 x XFX Radeon R9 290 DD 4096MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card (R9-290A-EDFD) £215.99
- (~)£15+£15+£15+£8=£53 game vouchers=~£162.99
290 v 970
BBFB=290 saves you ~£65
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