Does ATI's power draw/heat issue worry you?

[Infinite]

I'm not even talking about the HD4850 fan, it's too puny to offer a quiet, cool solution.

lol, it can do one or the other but not both =P

Tbh mine is idle at 73c and it isnt bothing me a bit and 83c at load. If it is designed to run at such a temperature then let it.

Also people worring about the high temp of the heatsink affecting other component is stupid. Niether my ambient, motherboard or cpu temp have changed.

[aidanjt]

As for heating up the motherboard, the heatsinks on the HD4850 may be retaining the heat but it will certainly influence the temperatures of components on the mobo around it. Seeing as the temps of the mobo elsewhere will be no more than 50C, the circuitry around the 80C card will surely be feeling the strain.

In which of the parellel universes does retained heat project itself somewhere else?.. The very definition of retention is to hold onto, not throw away. If the heatsink was say, 300C+ and starting to emit a lot of IR, then that would be a different matter entirely. But that's a far cry away from 80C.

[badass]

I'm specifically waiting for either the GTX260 to go down to 55nm or the Ati4850 with a better cooler.
The GTX260 because the cars is simply too big - less power usage should hopefully mean less power related bits or smaller ones on the card or the Ati4850 with a decent cooler because I just think that kind of ehat cycling can;t be good...

[NovaSphere]

I'm specifically waiting for either the GTX260 to go down to 55nm or the Ati4850 with a better cooler.
The GTX260 because the cars is simply too big - less power usage should hopefully mean less power related bits or smaller ones on the card or the Ati4850 with a decent cooler because I just think that kind of ehat cycling can;t be good...

I doubt the GTX260 or the GTX280 will be going down to the 55nm path anytime soon now, the new 200 series are huge that's true, but in length they are no bigger than the 8800 cards, so any problems you had with fitting those in should work aswell with the 200 series.
The 200 series simply look extremely big when looking at it since it seems to be 1 huge block of a card, once you compare there isn't much difference in size.

[kalniel]

I think they'll be going to 55nm quite soon actually, but I don't think they'll change the case, which I agree is too large for my system as well. Two-slot expelling 4850 would be ideal. Bring on the HIS card! (Except it'll probably be exclusive to one retailer )

[Hidden Hippo]

Surely performing the fan fix on the HD4800 series is sufficient? From what I've heard in my research on the matter (I'm upgrading soon as well) the fan is only set to run at 9% default - people have managed to get it down to around 50C by setting the fan to around 40%.

[kalniel]

Surely performing the fan fix on the HD4800 series is sufficient? From what I've heard in my research on the matter (I'm upgrading soon as well) the fan is only set to run at 9% default - people have managed to get it down to around 50C by setting the fan to around 40%.

It depends on your case airflow. Mine's setup to rely on the graphics card expelling heat rather than re-circulating. So changing the fan speed on a 4850 doesn't do much for me.

[Zak33]

The fan speed is only part of the issue.

Some of the latest nVidia cards throttle their power draw right back for 2d work. In a working PC that makes quite a big difference. Don't forget, some of these cards need TWO PCI express connectors to even function properly, so they are definately drawing big power, and that costs big money now.

Presume 100W extra is needed for gaming (underestimate prolly), the drain for 10 hours is 1kWh.

1kWh now costs pmost peoples over 12p.

That means that 83 hours gaming costs £1. Fair enough.

But if it used that much money when NOT gaming, just surfing, spreadsheeting, HEXUS'ing etc.... it all adds up.

A PC thats on for non gaming 5 hours per day, 5 days per week (mine tbh), 52 weeks per year = 1300 hours, and that is over £15 of electric. IN ONE YEAR!! You can spend £15 more on an energy efficient card and save it in 12 months!

[kalniel]

Some of the latest nVidia cards throttle their power draw right back for 2d work.

ATi cards have been doing that for years, it just seems a bit borked on the latest cards.

[this_is_gav]

It's not borked, it's just not as well optimised (yet?) on the HD48x0s. It's very much working, and can be evidenced in some DirectX 7 games in Win XP, which don't trigger the card to move into 3D mode, either by enabling certain 3D features or ramping up the clock-speed. I've one game (Grand Prix Legends) which runs at 9fps in XP. In Vista it's up to the FPS limit of the game (36FPS) nearly all the time as the 3D features are enabled for Aero. The clockspeed still doesn't ramp up though, but as it's such an old game, it doesn't make much difference.

The Hexus review itself (and that of the 9800GTX+ shows how little power the HD4850 draws at idle - it's less than the any other card (though the GTX260 wasn't included in the list, in theory it should be more than a 9800GTX+). The HD4870 uses more than the HD4850 at idle - some 20W more - but it's still 80W less than full load, which is pretty much what the others are around (except for the frankly ludicrous GTX280, which rises 150W, though I guess there's a positive in there in that it manages to idle comparatively low).

The next ATI card is rumoured to be moving to the 40nm process (missing out 45nm completely), but the release of that will be determined by TSMC plants being ready.