News - 512-core GeForce GTX 480 found to be hot and hungry

[HEXUS]

Early review suggests NVIDIA's full-fat GeForce GTX 480 consumes ludicrous amounts of power.

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[Tattysnuc]

If the numbers are accurate, then you can see why Nvidia released with one sm disabled and at 700 Mhz. It's the logical point - mixed performance/power output to be able to get a card out that competes (and invariably beats) the 5870. I'd like to see more reviews though to confirm those figures.

It does substantiate the NVidia card being far more power hungry to deliver the same fps output. Kinda goes against everything that's pro nvidia folding, in gaming. Are NVidia focussing too much on performance, and not enough on frames per watt?

[scaryjim]

Figures seem not unreasonable given the pre-release rumours about just how power-leaky the Fermi dies were, particularly when they get hot. With those kinds of figures it really doesn't make sense as a commercial product...

[borandi]

Nice to know Hexus likes to quote full system watt power numbers and write them on the site as if they were specific card power numbers.

What they have is a sample, not a go-to-market product. They're using 2x8-pin connectors for the 512SP rather than 1x6 and 1x8 for the 480 - the added 2 pins won't add another 204W available to the system. With 2x8pin @ 150W each, and the PCIe bus giving 75-150W, that maxes out at 450W available. The 480 cards were 250-280W, hence you can reserve speculation that there's an extra 204W required.