Power usage of 8800 GTS and GTX ?

[Defenestration]

I am not really a gamer apart from the odd flight sim (eg. Falcon 4), car racing game or chess game. I currently have a 7600GT which is OK, but I hope to upgrade my monitor resolution to WQXGA (ie. 2560×1600) in the near future and need a graphics card capable of handling it at decent, but not spectacular, frame rates.

I have read that these new 8800 GTS/GTX cards use a lot of power, but was wondering how much power they use when not playing games (eg. when browsing web, using text editor etc.) ?

Also, what's the power usage when at max compared to the 7600GT and 7900GS and GT ?

[chuckskull]

They are rated as using up to 250w in actual testing they're usually found to be around 150-170w.

Your HX620 will handle a 8800 with no problems at all.

[graysky]

A related question. How much does power cost for your Brits? It's about $0.11 - 0.12 per kWh where I live.

[acrobat]

Don't know here, but based on what everything else costs us.... I could take a wild guess and say... 5 times whatever it costs you

[redddraggon]

I think in school when we did physics and electricity that it costed about 8p a unit, which is a KWh

[graysky]

Interesting.. do you guys at a formal bill from your power company? It's usually printed on there somewhere. Also 100p to the pound right? So that's like $0.16 per kWh then.

[[GSV]Myocardial]

chuckskull -

Is that power draw for a GTX or GTS as I'd presume that the GTS would consume less, seing as they generally only have 1 power connector compared to the 2 on the GTX and the lower amount of ram and possibly core clock?


graysky -

Primary rates for electricity are currently between about £0.0125 and £0.17 per kWH, with secondary rates around the £0.08 mark.

So with current exchange rates electricity is between 2x and 3x as expensive as the USA for primary amount, falling once you use over the suppliers set amount which varies from around 750kWh - about 1000kWh.

And yes we get formal bills with rates stated, but their is alot of competition for energy supply in the UK so the straight out price is not the only issue when purchasing. Some tariffs provide higher per unit rates but with no standing charges while others provide lower rates and a standing charge some are touted as Green while some give you airmiles

[chuckskull]

That's GTX. The max that can be supplied by 2 PCI-e connectors and the slot is 225w(75w from the slot, another 75w each per cable). Plus another 175-200w for the rest of your system. The HX620 won't even break a sweat.