VGA power use chart

[red1776]

I thought I would post this for anyone planning a build, especially if you are thinking about Crossfire/SLI.
what you learn may surprise you

http://www.geeks3d.com/forums/index.php/topic,1946.0.html

 

[Arris]

Crossfired 5850s don't look too bad, checked this out with some other sites before going down that path myself, but didn't realise the difference between them and some other dual card setups.

 

[red1776]

Crossfired 5850s don't look too bad, checked this out with some other sites before going down that path myself, but didn't realise the difference between them and some other dual card setups.

I saw that, It makes me wonder about the accuracy of the chart. I wonder if "full load 3D was measured while gaming and not 'Furmark' type load or actual board limit, but according to this it is. The 5850's are listed as 188w max draw by AMD, so I had my system pulling 1300w of my 1650 under full load, so this is good news.

 

[Arris]

I saw that, It makes me wonder about the accuracy of the chart. I wonder if "full load 3D was measured while gaming and not 'Furmark' type load or actual board limit, but according to this it is. The 5850's are listed as 188w max draw by AMD, so I had my system pulling 1300w of my 1650 under full load, so this is good news.

I was even going to ask if you'd chosen 5850s as they were a sweet spot of crossfired power draw vs performance...

 

[red1776]

I was even going to ask if you'd chosen 5850s as they were a sweet spot of crossfired power draw vs performance...

Nope, I had no Idea that there was that much of an 'economy of scale' involved. I am not sure how this can be possible actually. I picked the 5850's as a 'sweet spot' however. The 5830's are neutered way to much as the cut the ROP's in half from 32 to 16...ouch. And two shader clusters fused (320 Spu's) and were only 10% less. The 5870 were 30% more for about a 12% increase in speed. I did the same with my last gamer, (a 4 x HD 4850) The 4850's were a swet spot between the 4830 and the 4870. I landed on the Asus 5850's with Voltage Tweak so I could OC them to 5870 specs, or more accurately 5870 production. I have them OC'ed to 5.5% over stock 5870 's and they perform as such. I really have a hard time believing that they are saving 300w by having them Crossfired.

 

[dividebyzero]

GTX 580 SLI max load is apparently 627w, while adding a third card increases power consumption by 33w.....someone better wake that third card up!

I presume the numbers in the brackets are the number of reviews sampled, since the lower numbers correlate with a lack of idle/2D and "gaming" load figures. I'd be more inclined to have faith in the tables if they had included a legend to what sites provided the data in each instance.