How Much Power Does Your Graphics Card Need?

[frozenlead]

Does anyone know a good PSU to power my flux capacitor?

 

[Guest]

it's strange that GB version of 8800GT & 9600GT consumes less power than 512MB one!

 

[Pei-chen]

[citation][nom]terr281[/nom]The Nvidia 9800 GT (512 & 1024 versions), with their die shrink, should be added as well. In theory, they should require less power than the tested 8800 GTs.[/citation]
The EVGA 512-P3-N980-AR 9800GT (G92b 55mn) I had idles at 1.10A on my system (spec. in first page) with core clock at 300 and RAM 500. At load @ 700/1000 the whole system consume about 1.66A.

You are better off buying Gigabyte’s version of these cards as Gigabyte custom designed the PCB to increase efficiency. My 4850 is a custom designed Gigabyte.

 

[Guest]

A shame you don't have the latest cards (nvidia 295, 285, revised 260) on the actual power consumption chart, especially since a guide like this would appeal to someone buying -new- cards.

So hard to find a power consumption chart that at least states a reference number for power consumption on a system without a GPU, and was a dissapointment to see a good gpu-only chart only for the latest cards to be missing.

 

[dragonsprayer]

Nice stuff - remember to size the system at 50-70% so a 500w load is 800w psu and 650w load is 1000w psu!

easy as pie!

 

[caamsa]

Specs of NVIDIA GeForce 9600GT Green Edition Leaked

http://en.expreview.com/2009/01/21/specs-of-nvidia-geforce-9600gt-green-edition-leaked.html

Here is a power fighting card. ;-)

 

[hustler539]

The GeForce GTX 260 is listed twice on first list. I am assuming one was meant to be the core 216 but they are both listed as 192.

 

[V3NOM]

WTF:
GeForce 9600 GTX
G94
1024 MB GDDR3
650 MHz
4.0, 1625 MHz
1800 MHz
64
GeForce 9600 GT SLI
G94
1024 MB GDDR3
650 MHz
4.0, 1625 MHz
1800 MHz
64
GeForce 9600 GT
G94
512 MB GDDR3
650 MHz
4.0, 1625 MHz
1800 MHz
64

9600GTX???? i've never heard of that, and its specs look EXACTLY the same as the 9600GT except double the RAM. wow. i've seen 1GB 9600GT's too..

 

[hustler539]

Question, You mentioned you can use tools such as RivaTuner to turn down cards that don’t reduce their clock rate, is this what you guys did with those?(7800GT etc.)


Also, here is a good site to help you calculate total wattage consumption when building a new system:
http://extreme.outervision.com/psucalculatorlite.jsp

 

[jtnstnt]

[citation][nom]Inktfish[/nom]Could you please add the Radeon 4830?[/citation]

I looked around and I saw that the 4830 consumes about the same power as the 4850. Even though it has a certain amount of shaders and other parts disabled.

 

[dragonsprayer]

i think the article is great as it is they are not going back and rewriting it - if you want a minor change you see what is close - com on guys

GREAT WORK THG!

one of the most extensive power articles i have ever seen and it no doubt will be a reference for many for years to come!

 

[ahm12]

i have a question. if a graphics cards has both 6 pin and 8 pin connecter then does that mean it needs both 6 pin and 8 pin power connecter or either one of these.

 

[anonymous x]

wow this article made me think even my 500w psu is overkill

 

[V3NOM]

[citation][nom]ahm12[/nom]i have a question. if a graphics cards has both 6 pin and 8 pin connecter then does that mean it needs both 6 pin and 8 pin power connecter or either one of these.[/citation]
it must use both. otherwise it would just have a single 6 pin,seing as how most people don't have 8 pin PSU's, and those that do have "6+2" pins, which allow you to use either 6 pins or all 8.

 

[Zerk]

Man most of you are so Negative! Can't you be more appreciative and be glad they put this great post here in the first place?

Great post! Exactly what I wanted to know! Thank you Tino Kreiss and Tom's!

 

[Guest]

9800 gtx + ssc edition will work with 750 w psu?

 

[zedx]

Great article. Guess Power consumption should be in the charts or there should be a recommended PSU calculator. Anyways some things like AMD HD 4830 and Phenom II were missing...

 

[bobbyd]

Great article! Just the thing I've been looking for for awhile now. Thanks for taking the extra time to make it involved and explanatory. It must have taken lots of time to gather all that info. Keep up your stead fast dedication and outstanding work.

 

[neiroatopelcc]

[citation][nom]one-shot[/nom]Let's take a step back. If his PSU is 400W and it is 75% efficient, then it draws 533.3W at maximum power draw. You are somewhat close, but you generalized. Different PSU's are more efficient at different load percentages, but 75% sounds alright for an older PSU. His Computer draws 400W and his PSU draws 533W from the receptacle on the wall.[/citation]

Both of you misinterpreted my post. My power supply is a 620W corsair I received last year. Presumably rather efficient. My 400W came from the page where it said, that a 600W psu is effective from 390w and up to 5-something. So I'd need to reach at least a 400w power consumption on my rig to get within the generalized band of high effectiveness. I remember seeing a high power shootout, where a silverstone psu was actually more efficient at 300w than at 600w though, so I know the chart doesn't represent all power supplies correctly. But still.

Anyway, I still think it's better to have a too big psu than a too small one. I still remember when my 550w psu sent flames out the back when I tried to power an overclocked northwood, a couple raptors and all the other stuff that went into the system. I don't want that again.

 

[Proximon]

This is a great article on power consumption, and therein lies the problem.

The article implies that all "brand name" PSUs are good, and that is false. This article will be linked and handed around for some time to come, and it's important to set that straight. Quite a large number of power supplies from some very well known companies have been shown to be very poor or downright dangerous to computer parts.

 

[randomizer]

[citation][nom]Proximon[/nom]This is a great article on power consumption, and therein lies the problem.The article implies that all "brand name" PSUs are good, and that is false.[/citation]
It's beyond the scope of this article to determine what is and what isn't a "good" power supply.

 

[Guest]

How exactly are the power consumptions measured?

*What application is used to load test?
*The 3850 + 4670 idle consumptions look a little high, are the figures including the inefficiency of the power supply?

 

[neiroatopelcc]

[citation][nom]randomkiddo[/nom]How exactly are the power consumptions measured?*What application is used to load test?*The 3850 + 4670 idle consumptions look a little high, are the figures including the inefficiency of the power supply?[/citation]
all your questions are answered by the article, if you read more than just the numbers.

 

[Guest]

*The GTX260SLI uses more power then the GTX280SLI?
*Some of the dual card setups aren't anywhere near 2x the power consumption of the single card counterparts.
*With video card power consumption, how were they measured? (if they were just assumed by subtracting the assumed power consumption of the others, there will be errors, when comparing different power video cards, the CPU power consumption varies as well)

 

[Inktfish]

[citation][nom]jtnstnt[/nom]I looked around and I saw that the 4830 consumes about the same power as the 4850. Even though it has a certain amount of shaders and other parts disabled.[/citation]

Thanks for that explenation
Furthermore, I forgot to mention at my first post, great article