A few years ago Intel realised that power hungry CPU weren't the way forward for them and ditched the whole P4 architecture. While the change was a bit upheaval for Intel it lead to them launching one of their best CPU designs (Core2) and reclaiming a lot of the lost market from AMD. Do you think we’re going to see anything similar in the GPU world in the near future as the increase in power need for current cards is getting daft and leaving a huge gap in performance between Laptops and desktop graphics?
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GPU Power usage
- Thread starter Geffen
- Start date
Associate
- Joined
- 20 Feb 2010
- Posts
- 139
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- UK Shropshire
GPU technology is definately improving when it comes to power consumption. The smaller chips that they are now using are mostly based around the 40nm process, and if you think back a year or two, some cards back then were running a 90nm process, therefore being power hungry (some requiring 8 pin power connections) and generating more heat than volcano.
ATi are very aware of this, and when their new 5000 series cards hit the market, their aim was to reduce power consumption, and they have been successful. If you compare a 4870 to a 5870, the idle and load power consumption levels are significantly reduced (roughly 30watts less in both cases).
It will be interesting to see how Nvidia's new cards perfrom when it comes to power consumption, the specs look very power hungry, but no word on the requirments yet. Im thinking their 'flagship card' (the one that will go up against the 5970) will be more power hungry than any cards ATi have to offer, but who knows, have to wait till the end of march to find out.
ATi are very aware of this, and when their new 5000 series cards hit the market, their aim was to reduce power consumption, and they have been successful. If you compare a 4870 to a 5870, the idle and load power consumption levels are significantly reduced (roughly 30watts less in both cases).
It will be interesting to see how Nvidia's new cards perfrom when it comes to power consumption, the specs look very power hungry, but no word on the requirments yet. Im thinking their 'flagship card' (the one that will go up against the 5970) will be more power hungry than any cards ATi have to offer, but who knows, have to wait till the end of march to find out.
