X-bit labs

Power Consumption of Contemporary Graphics Accelerators. Part II: NVIDIA vs. ATI (page 8)

Category: Video

by Tim Tscheblockov

[ 08/22/2004 | 12:11 PM ]

NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700

The NVIDIA GeForce FX 5700 is cheaper and slower than its “Ultra” namesake. Such graphics cards usually carry chips of ordinary DDR SDRAM, which feel all right without any cooling. Cheaper and cooler, GeForce FX 5700-based cards gained more popularity than their “Ultra” analogs.

I took Leadtek’s WinFast A360 TDH MyVIVO graphics card for my tests:

This card has no additional power connector and its cooling system only removes heat from the GPU. The nominal clock rates of this card – they are the same in 2D and 3D applications – are 425/550MHz. The card had a nice frequency growth at overclocking: up to 470/660MHz.

Here are the results of my tests:

The manufacturer of the card reduced the frequencies and gave up DDR2 memory to achieve an excellent result: the product consumes about twice less power than the GeForce FX 5700 Ultra! It is a remarkable fact that they didn’t have to separate the frequencies and voltages of the graphics processor in 2D and 3D modes. The core clock rate is always 425MHz; its voltage, as measured by me, is about 1.43v.

The results in more detail:

The 3.3v line takes the biggest load: the current in the Burn mode is 3.96amp, and the power consumption is 12.36W. Anyway, this is all very modest by today’s standards.