Real Power Consumption - 4870 X2 & GTX295 out of Spec!

[onethreehill]

We (german Hardware-Mag HT4U) have got some meassurings of power consumption of current graphics cards for you. The results represent the power consumption of the graphics cards only, these values are not the consumption of the whole system. If you´re interessted in the way how we meassure -> go here. The article is in german, but i think tables, pictures and charts are multilingual .

Instead of 3DMark06 we used FurMark as load. Furmark causes a much higher power consumption than other tools (for a comparison go at the end of this page). With FurMark most notably the High-End-Cards dramaticly exceed TDP and even more worse: PCI-Express-Specification.

For example: A HD 4870 X2 (TDP of 286 Watt) consumes 373 Watt with Furmark. GTX 295 isn´t much better in this case 289 Watt (TDP) vs. 317 Watt (Furmark). For TDP-versus-Reality-values of other cards go here:
http://ht4u.net/reviews/2009/leistun...a/index14.php]

Some Cards even don´t work within PCIe-Specs using Furmark. For Example, 4870 X2 consumes over 200 Watt from the 8-Pin-Connector (specified for 150 Watt). GTX295, 285 exceed the Maximum of 6-Pin-Connector (75 Watt) with in both cases about 100 Watts.

For an overview of consumption of all tested cards, go here.

Hope you´ll find some interessting informations in the article .

http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=387997

[XS Janus]

Ridiculous power draws...
I see 8800GT uses 111W vs 214W with 285... Where is the progress in that I ask...

http://ht4u.net/reviews/2009/leistun...index14.php%5D

[Shintai]

Its hardly no surprise I guess. Pretty sad tho. GPU makers have for along time been truely horrible. They push things too hard. We get shortlived products and the consumer ends up paying twice in the terms of power bill. not even to talk about the dustbuster effect.

I mean we sit here and talk about uhhh..this CPU uses 20-30W more. BUUH BAD CPU! 295 and 4870X2 both over 300W. One almost 400W. Both AMD and nVidia can go screw themselves honestly. One thing is sure, my next GFX card will be sub 75W.

Also there is hardly any progress. They simply just keep pumping power in. Trislot coolers cant be far away.

Just imagine a retail 300 or 400W C2Q, i7, PH2 etc. If Intel or AMD came with that, everyone here would talk about removing people from the gene pool.

I guess the reference designs everyone uses is a nice way to hide the consumption behind fake TDPs.

[Calmatory]

Its hardly no surprise I guess. Pretty sad tho. GPU makers have for along time been truely horrible. They push things too hard. We get shortlived products and the consumer ends up paying twice in the terms of power bill. not even to talk about the dustbuster effect.

I mean we sit here and talk about uhhh..this CPU uses 20-30W more. BUUH BAD CPU! 295 and 4870X2 both over 300W. One almost 400W. Both AMD and nVidia can go screw themselves honestly. One thing is sure, my next GFX card will be sub 75W.

Also there is hardly any progress. They simply just keep pumping power in. Trislot coolers cant be far away.

Just imagine a retail 300 or 400W C2Q, i7, PH2 etc. If Intel or AMD came with that, everyone here would talk about removing people from the gene pool.

Couldnät agree more.

[SNiiPE_DoGG]

I don't have to pay for power at college, or at least not an extra bill on top of what I already pay I guess I should start F@H on my 4870x2 to add to my WCG

[IronWarrior]

I don't honesty care how much power these things uses as long they bloody work and that there is a powerful enough PSU out there to power the things.

[BrowncoatGR]

Senseless drivel

[Bo_Fox]

LOL, that's the problem here--- you guys keep on buying 4870X2's and GTX 295's like hot cakes!!! As long as there's enough demand for those cards from suckers with 1000W PSU's, Nvidia and ATI will continue to focus on those cards.

Me, i'm a retired SLI veteran.. it's just not worth the headache or troubles just to have 8x FSAA over 4x FSAA in a few newer games.

[ToTTenTranz]

Since we're at it, why not badmouth all the people who drive sportscars?

[Zytek_Fan]

Yet again efficiency is on the backburner for GPU makers

[Shintai]

Since we're at it, why not badmouth all the people who drive sportscars?

Already done that (Unless its a Tesla I guess!)

[Zytek_Fan]

Already done that (Unless its a Tesla I guess!)

Or a diesel

[v_rr]

Its hardly no surprise I guess. Pretty sad tho. GPU makers have for along time been truely horrible. They push things too hard. We get shortlived products and the consumer ends up paying twice in the terms of power bill. not even to talk about the dustbuster effect.

I mean we sit here and talk about uhhh..this CPU uses 20-30W more. BUUH BAD CPU! 295 and 4870X2 both over 300W. One almost 400W. Both AMD and nVidia can go screw themselves honestly. One thing is sure, my next GFX card will be sub 75W.

Also there is hardly any progress. They simply just keep pumping power in. Trislot coolers cant be far away.

Just imagine a retail 300 or 400W C2Q, i7, PH2 etc. If Intel or AMD came with that, everyone here would talk about removing people from the gene pool.

I guess the reference designs everyone uses is a nice way to hide the consumption behind fake TDPs.

Hum?
Furmark is useless. Real world tests are the way to go, not crap benchmarks.

And if you want GFX <75W you have plently of them on the market.

[Shintai]

Or a diesel

No, I would say pure electric cars. Hybrid cars and cars like the volt is just a joke. There is a plan here in Denmark to have 100000(From TV news) pure electric cars running in 2011 together with an american organization and the biggest power company here. I´m not sure how many cars there are here. Something around 1 or 1½million.

http://www.betterplace.com/press-roo...oduce-environm
http://earth2tech.com/2009/01/27/bet...c-car-project/
http://www.greencarcongress.com/2009...-place-do.html

The key would be standardlized batteries. Cars will have a 160km(100miles) range on a charge. And charging stations would simply swap battery. Its faster than putting fuel on your car today. You can ofcourse also charge it at home.

[STaRGaZeR]

Just another site that confirms the terrible GDDR5 power consumption at idle

EDIT: and high clocks, just like the HD4870 is now.

[G0ldBr1ck]

Just imagine a retail 300 or 400W C2Q, i7, PH2 etc. If Intel or AMD came with that, everyone here would talk about removing people from the gene pool.

I guess the reference designs everyone uses is a nice way to hide the consumption behind fake TDPs.

Not if It could play super Pi

[LiquidReactor]

Hum?
Furmark is useless. Real world tests are the way to go, not crap benchmarks.

And if you want GFX <75W you have plently of them on the market.

lol, with that reason should we all here just be using Crysis/GTA4 + some firefox tabs to test our overclock stability? They do count as real world tests, that means they are better right.

[3NZ0]

Power consumption results on XS?

LOL

That said though, I do enjoy using my nc10 for internet/light office work.

[v_rr]

lol, with that reason should we all here just be using Crysis/GTA4 + some firefox tabs to test our overclock stability? They do count as real world tests, that means they are better right.

If your overclock don´t fail in any program or game and circunstance you use your pc, yes it is stable for it´s use

Some people only want stability to make a run for 3dmark one time, other want for 24h use. Depends on people = real world tests.

[Bo_Fox]

Since we're at it, why not badmouth all the people who drive sportscars?

Yeah! Why not? Hummer stopped making H1's in 2006 because we decided that they slurped way too much gas.

Furthermore, Hummer sold 54,052 H2's in 2006 and only 6,095 H2's in 2008. A huge difference, eh?

[Eastcoasthandle]

I am not sure I understand the validity of this article. Did AMD and Nvidia base their TDP on furmark? Did the author of said article contact both Nvidia and AMD to find out what was used to determine TDP and use his results as a litmus as to their claims?

After reading this article I find myself asking more questions then what this article is suppose to answer. Another concern is that the use of furmark in this fashion can give the impression to others that those results are what you get in games and other programs. The truth is (if you used furmark) is that you don't draw nearly as much power and heat in games and programs as you do with furmark (at least based on my on examination of this).

Therefore, IMO this type of review should be about pushing power consumption to the max.

[Serra]

Higher power consumption is one thing, but that's pretty drastically out of specification.

Yeah! Why not? Hummer stopped making H1's in 2006 because we decided that they slurped way too much gas.

Furthermore, Hummer sold 54,052 H2's in 2006 and only 6,095 H2's in 2008. A huge difference, eh?

In fairness to the hummer, that doesn't take into consideration that the H3 exists - so it's really more like 54k vs. 27k. Still a huge difference, mind.

[LordEC911]

If you´re interessted in the way how we meassure -> go here. The article is in german, but i think tables, pictures and charts are multilingual .http://forums.vr-zone.com/showthread.php?t=387997

Yep, explaining the science behind the results is multilingual, graphs, tables and charts are very good ways to let us reproduce these results and follow the exact procedures.

Also, since when are cards 100% efficient? VRM's, PWM's, caps?
Conducting these sort of tests with no background knowledge in EE is somewhat amusing. Plus, there are always unknown anomalies that can happen, nothing is 100% accurate/foolproof.

Edit- There are many possible explanations for these results and for this community to jump to conclusions is simply sad...

[Sparky]

Since we're at it, why not badmouth all the people who drive sportscars?

<shrug> go ahead. Corvette can get near 30mpg on the highway so I don't see a problem. Pretty impressive really.
And you badmouthing me won't stop me from driving my Camaro

/offtopic

[Elfear]

<shrug> go ahead. Corvette can get near 30mpg on the highway so I don't see a problem. Pretty impressive really.
And you badmouthing me won't stop me from driving my Camaro

/offtopic

+1

The Corvette is an amazing piece of machinery and I dread the day that my only choice in cars is some impotent econobox.

Back OT- Forgive my ignorance, but isn't pulling more power than the spec allows bad for parts longevity? If the PSU has enough amps on the 12V rail, what other shortcomings might there be?