News - Colorful's box spills more details on NVIDIA GeForce GTX 480 GPU

[HEXUS]

Outputs, power, and RAM all listed on the box.

Read more.

[Shooty*]

How long til we have GPUs you need to plug directly into the mains?

[jim]

At least all those stupid 1kw PSUs might actually come in useful.

[scaryjim]

Indeed, 42A on the 12V line means > 500W - so I reckon the rumoured 280W TDP must be pretty close to the truth, at least for the top end part. That's kinda power hungry for a 40nm part, isn't it? Does the 1536MB hint at a 384bit memory bus? I thought it was gonna be in the 400s?

[CK_1985]

...Does the 1536MB hint at a 384bit memory bus? I thought it was gonna be in the 400s?

I was under the opposite impression - that the 480 was definitely going to have a 384bit bus. Somenone's bound to spill it soon enough though!

The choice of outputs is quite telling I reckon - they've obviously had to use one of the two slots as a full-width exhaust vent (unlike the 5870's half-and-half design), so clearly it's gonna produce a lot of heat...

[Darren]

600w minimum, so that basically renders the Seasonic X 750 I got usless for SLi, just as it does for the latest Pro and Modu ranges from Enermax aimed at the enthusiast. Am I the only one who finds that power draw questionably high? It's 100 watt above the minimum for a 5870, and is on par with a crossfire setup of two of them.

Yet the performance we've seen from leaked numbers suggests it doesn't justify that power requirement increase. Yeah I know we should wait for confirmed numbers but I can't help shaking something is wrong here.

[Nikumba]

How long til we have GPUs you need to plug directly into the mains?

Have we not already done that? Didn't a 3DFX card need to do this? the 5000 or somthing?

Kimbie

[LuckyNV]

I wouldn't put too much stock into a box recommendation with PSU requirements, they are always conservative so a poor 600W with 42A should be able to perform with this card.

PSU recommendations always depends on the card too, high end card assumes high end CPU too.

I would wait and see what reviews show if they test the actual power draw.

[jim]

Does the 1536MB hint at a 384bit memory bus? I thought it was gonna be in the 400s?

I thought that was already known, because people were talking a little while ago about how a supposed Fermi unit with 1GB RAM must either be a fake or nVidia were trying to keep things simple and underquoting the genuine amount of RAM - as a consequence of the 384 bit bus they knew it sported.

[Shooty*]

Heh. Everyone keep an eye open to see if the sun dims noticeably over the next few weeks.

[Platinum]

Have we not already done that? Didn't a 3DFX card need to do this? the 5000 or somthing?

Kimbie

Yep :

[matty-hodgson]

Is a 600W minimum PSU really such a big deal? Get your graphics card box out and just have a look what the minimum is on yours.

On my GTX275 box it says a 550W minimum, with a minumum of 40A on the 12V rail. That's no big deal, really.

[Terbinator]

As with Snooty, the 384bit interface has been known for a while.

[Hicks12]

Yep :

OMG i have that card! I always wondered what that connection was at the back (missing the power adaptor). I also have another card which has a blue bracket and 1 or 2 ariel like connections (im no good with the names) and that card is probably bigger than an AMD 5870/90 .


Dont believe the boxes, they are always really high to cover themselves and iirc the 4870 said 600w PSU so not THAT bad . Wait and see .

[Darren]

Is a 600W minimum PSU really such a big deal? Get your graphics card box out and just have a look what the minimum is on yours.

On my GTX275 box it says a 550W minimum, with a minumum of 40A on the 12V rail. That's no big deal, really.

Well I would say 600 watts for a single card system is quite high considering a crossfire setup from ATi that has two of the latest GPU chips asks for the same. Either Nvidia are being extra conservative with their figures like LuckyNV said or their cards are considerably more power hungry for very little tangible benefit.

[matty-hodgson]

Well I would say 600 watts for a single card system is quite high considering a crossfire setup from ATi that has two of the latest GPU chips asks for the same. Either Nvidia are being extra conservative with their figures like LuckyNV said or their cards are considerably more power hungry for very little tangible benefit.

Well my whole system consumes 300W at full load, CPU and GFX card. And that's at the wall. So say my PSU is 85% efficient, we're talking about 260W for the full system. And it's saying I need a 550W. Yeah, they're just giving shed-loads of headroom on their statement.