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I am thinking about replacing the GT240 in my htpc with something with a little more grunt for F@H, with it being in my htpc I would like to keep the power low as although I can plug in a pci-e power plug I would rather keep it bus powered, the only thing it requires other than a bit more power is a hdmi out (either on the card or adapter is fine)
I was looking at the GT545, but despite some news sites saying it was going to be released at retail I can't find it.
Main thing I think you need to clear up is what you mean by lowpower esp when combined with folding.
I cannot remember if F@H is purely cpu based or does it also load the gpu?
If it loads the gpu the power choice is simple, performance or power draw, most current gpu's use very little power when idle so it'll not matter much what card you use, however if it's going to be under constant load then it does pretty much come down to more gpu grunt = more power consumption.
The gt520 uses roughly half the wattage of the gt240
http://tpucdn.com/reviews/Zotac/GeFo...power_idle.gif http://tpucdn.com/reviews/Zotac/GeFo...er_maximum.gif
But conversely the gt240 is about 50% better
(the gt240 is about 20% faster than the gt430 which is about 30% faster than the gt5200)
http://tpucdn.com/reviews/Zotac/GeFo...es/perfrel.gif http://tpucdn.com/reviews/Zotac/GeFo...es/perfrel.gif
Unfortunately nvidias's lower end cards are pretty rubbish
Trying to find a 2nd hand 9800GT "eco" card, ie one using the G92b and no additional power connector is still probably one of the most powerful bus only power draw cards.
PS AFAIK the gt545 is OEM only
Folding on the gpu usually loads it up to the high 90%'s, so it is load power figures that are key to me, I would like to keep it under the 75W bus limit, though the pickings at that level are slim, and other than the 9800 that you pointed out there doesn't seem to be much more powerful than the gt240 I currently have that isn't oem only, dose anyone know of anywhere I can pickup oem cards?
Edit:
The only 9800gt eco I could find was this one on ebay, with a rather horrid description with increasing text size :(
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/BFG-NVIDIA...item43ab3e5c35
I am thinking that if I can't go bus powered that 90-100w is the highest I would like to go, the gt240 I have hasn't got a pci-e power connector so runs at less than the 75w, though with it being listed as 85w on those charts, I doubt it is much lower than that.Quote:
HELLO GAMERS, WELCOME TO ANOTHER OF MY OFFERS
THIS TIME WE HAVE A 9800 GT ECOINTELLIGENCE BFG.
AS SOON AS I TOOK THE CARD OUT OF THE BOX FOR MY TESTS I UNDERSTOOD STRAIGHTLY WHAT "ECOINTELLIGENCE" MEANT FOR THE ENGINEERS THAT DESIGNED THIS CARD.
THE CARD HAS NO 6 PIN PSU PLUG LIKE THE OTHER 9800 AROUND, SO THAT MAKES IT VERY APPEALING FOR GAMERS WHO DO NOT HAVE A NEW PSU OR DO NOT WANT CABLES AND INCREASE AIRFLOW IN THEIR TOWER CASE.
TEST WISE I COULDN`T REALLY SEE ANY DROP IN PERFORMANCES , SO THE CARD IS AS POWERFUL AS A NORMAL 9800 BUT WITH THE AFOREMENTIONED ADVANTAGES.
UHMMM IT IDLES AROUND 58-60 DEGREES , THE ONLY CON IS THAT IT PRODUCES A HISSING , IT IS NOT A DEFECT AND I USE A WATERCOOLED OPEN AIR TEST BENCH SO YOU WOULD NOT HEAR MUCH IF PLACED IN A CASE.
POSTAGE FOR MAINLAND UK , OTHER UK DESTINATIONS PLEASE ASK.
£30 p&p is a bit of a joke but if no other bids then £31 isn't too bad
Aria still has the rpoduct page so you can get some of the specs http://www.aria.co.uk/Products/Compo...roductId=38884
Like the Zotac it's 50mhz underclocked from the standard 9800gt so performance will be a little lower, 8-10% I think.
upping to a single power connector then the gts450 or gtx550ti
the gts450 is about 110w full load the gtx550ti is around 135w I think
However that's under furmark which does generally push nvidia cards well above the power demand for games, although I'm not sure how stressful folding is on the power consumption.
For games it's more like 90w and 110w
ebay are usually quite quick to remove auctions with low starting bids and high p&p as it is simply a way for people to avoid fees, but £31 isn't bad at all, only problem is I don't know if the 9 series have proper hdmi out as the gt240 outputs audio and video, will have to look into that, oh and the hissing sound they mention in the description and the high idle temps aren't exactly the sort of confidence builder I would like to see in an ad lol
Absolute helpful discussions here, I really love to read and have a lots of questions about power consumption of graphics cards. The real answer is here up in this thread and I've understand a lots of things about energy consumption of High end graphics card these days, thank you for providing such a nice help.
I went with HD 5450 and it runs 1080p with no problem. And from looking at the charts its low power too. £30 from maplins mine was so a fairly cheap upgrade!
Rereading the OP I'm a bit of an idiot. 5450 is not an upgrade-ignore my previous post, I just saw the graphs for efficiency and didn't realise that the other was for performance, because they're fairly similar. However we can learn two things from this:
1: I'm an idiot and should always read the posts properly
2: More performance means more power and they're propotional- no-one has come up with a low power, high performance GPU or even come close