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#1
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is power consumption proportional to workload?
Does power consumption of the 8800gt vary significantly with workload, or is
it fixed? I'm about to build a new PC. I'm not a gamer at all, but would like to be able to run Flight Simulator X (FSX). That will be on rare occasions, but I'd like it to run well when I do. I've read that an 8600gt consumes about 43 watts, but the 8800gt consumes 138 watts -- a huge difference. (My reference is en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_8_Series ) 8800gt prices are coming down and I'd be willing to pay the difference over an 8600gt for a good FSX experience, but am not willing to pay for the power (or suffer the heat thereof) of the extra 100 watts continually. However, if these power figures are under maximum load, which would occur under gaming, and if the power using normal office applications would be greatly less than those figures, then I'd go with the 8800gt. Otherwise, I'd go with the 8600gt. Can anyone answer this definitively, please? |
#2
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is power consumption proportional to workload?
'BobAtVandy' wrote, in part:
Does power consumption of the 8800gt vary significantly with workload, or is it fixed? _____ Yes. That is the definitive answer. But you probably want to ask the question in a different way. Phil Weldon "BobAtVandy" wrote in message news Does power consumption of the 8800gt vary significantly with workload, or is it fixed? I'm about to build a new PC. I'm not a gamer at all, but would like to be able to run Flight Simulator X (FSX). That will be on rare occasions, but I'd like it to run well when I do. I've read that an 8600gt consumes about 43 watts, but the 8800gt consumes 138 watts -- a huge difference. (My reference is en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_8_Series ) 8800gt prices are coming down and I'd be willing to pay the difference over an 8600gt for a good FSX experience, but am not willing to pay for the power (or suffer the heat thereof) of the extra 100 watts continually. However, if these power figures are under maximum load, which would occur under gaming, and if the power using normal office applications would be greatly less than those figures, then I'd go with the 8800gt. Otherwise, I'd go with the 8600gt. Can anyone answer this definitively, please? |
#3
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is power consumption proportional to workload?
BobAtVandy wrote:
Does power consumption of the 8800gt vary significantly with workload, or is it fixed? I'm about to build a new PC. I'm not a gamer at all, but would like to be able to run Flight Simulator X (FSX). That will be on rare occasions, but I'd like it to run well when I do. I've read that an 8600gt consumes about 43 watts, but the 8800gt consumes 138 watts -- a huge difference. (My reference is en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_8_Series ) 8800gt prices are coming down and I'd be willing to pay the difference over an 8600gt for a good FSX experience, but am not willing to pay for the power (or suffer the heat thereof) of the extra 100 watts continually. However, if these power figures are under maximum load, which would occur under gaming, and if the power using normal office applications would be greatly less than those figures, then I'd go with the 8800gt. Otherwise, I'd go with the 8600gt. Can anyone answer this definitively, please? If you are that concerned about the possibility of using an extra 100W a few hours a day you need to invest in a cheap kill-a-watt device (Google) it can measure and log effortlessly. You can then find out your actual electrical usage over time...say a week or so and using the supplied information and your KWH/$.$$ rate determine what steps you need to take, such as power saving modes, to meet your goals. Idle wattage does differ among cards and PC configurations, there are numerous PC Power Calculators (Google) which can approximate your idle wattage based on your input. As an example, currently reported by a Kill-A-Watt: idle: 140W 3DMark2006: 235W 8800GTS(G92)512M @ 700MHz OPT185 @ 2.8GHz 2G DDR 1 HDD 3 Fans 2 PCI cards + PC Powered Breakout box 12 USB devices with 2 being AC powered. The maximum charge so far in my zone is 0.16/KWH (including all KWH sensitive fees). Taking the 95W an hour difference between idle and ready and gaming and doing the 16 cents a KW hour math gets you a grand total of 2 cents an hour extra to game than to idle. If you gamed two hours a day every day. At the end of a year you would pay $11 more in electricity than if you did not. We can ignore the speakers and network equipment's current draw unless you only use them for gaming, but I bet you do not. Lastly, the 8600GT sucks don't buy it unless you want people to point at you mockingly. |
#4
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is power consumption proportional to workload?
BobAtVandy wrote:
Does power consumption of the 8800gt vary significantly with workload, or is it fixed? I'm about to build a new PC. I'm not a gamer at all, but would like to be able to run Flight Simulator X (FSX). That will be on rare occasions, but I'd like it to run well when I do. I've read that an 8600gt consumes about 43 watts, but the 8800gt consumes 138 watts -- a huge difference. (My reference is en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeForce_8_Series ) 8800gt prices are coming down and I'd be willing to pay the difference over an 8600gt for a good FSX experience, but am not willing to pay for the power (or suffer the heat thereof) of the extra 100 watts continually. However, if these power figures are under maximum load, which would occur under gaming, and if the power using normal office applications would be greatly less than those figures, then I'd go with the 8800gt. Otherwise, I'd go with the 8600gt. Can anyone answer this definitively, please? This site has measured power consumption. They install current shunts in the PCI Express slot, and also measure the Aux power connector, and do it for various test conditions. Near the bottom of the page, is a comparison chart, comparing various cards of a similar vintage. http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/vid...-8800gt_5.html In this graphic, "idle", the table on the left, is what the 8800gt will burn sitting in the Windows desktop. http://www.xbitlabs.com/images/video...power_full.gif The "3D peak" would be in a gaming situation. I'm not really sure what their "2D peak" would correspond to, in terms of real world usage. Perhaps scrolling a document, or doing something that involves a lot of bitblt or something. Note that these numbers are measured for *one* card, and thus if a statistician was involved, would be invalid for the purposes of establishing how all cards behave. When Nvidia states a value for power, it might be some kind of engineering max, and hard to relate to an Xbitlabs measured value. Paul |
#5
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is power consumption proportional to workload?
"Phil Weldon" wrote in message ... 'BobAtVandy' wrote, in part: Does power consumption of the 8800gt vary significantly with workload, or is it fixed? _____ Yes. That is the definitive answer. But you probably want to ask the question in a different way. Phil Weldon I disagree. I would say the definitive answer is No. Ed |
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