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idle power of 8500 GT
I got a PC which had a Sapphire HD4870 graphics card.
I measured the idle power draw of the PC, and it was 249 W. I thought the HD4870 might have something to do with this, as it has two extra power connectors. I have another PC containing this card, and it can get hot. I do not need a powerful graphics card, for this particular PC. Well HD4870 not considered powerful in 2013, but that is still more grunt than I require, so I put in a GV-NX85T512 based on Geforce 8500 GT. I believe that was a year older than the HD4870. The card has no fan, so I assumed it would use less power. I again measured the idle draw of the PC, and it is now 255 W, up 6 W! |
#2
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idle power of 8500 GT
wrote:
I got a PC which had a Sapphire HD4870 graphics card. I measured the idle power draw of the PC, and it was 249 W. I thought the HD4870 might have something to do with this, as it has two extra power connectors. I have another PC containing this card, and it can get hot. I do not need a powerful graphics card, for this particular PC. Well HD4870 not considered powerful in 2013, but that is still more grunt than I require, so I put in a GV-NX85T512 based on Geforce 8500 GT. I believe that was a year older than the HD4870. The card has no fan, so I assumed it would use less power. I again measured the idle draw of the PC, and it is now 255 W, up 6 W! Even if grossly wrong, these two power estimates should tell you the cards are in entirely different classes. The best numbers (for me at least), come from the Xbitlabs measurements of the cards. When that data is unavailable, I come here. These are "second best" guesstimates. http://www.gpureview.com/show_cards....=564&card2=514 HD 4870 150W 8500 GT PCI-E 40W I would suspect a problem with the power measurement technique. The best device for the job, would be a Kill-O-Watt meter, as it is specifically designed for power measurements. And uses the same measurement techniques as digital power meters on the side of a house. Different versions of this are available, with different power plugs on them. More than one company makes them. http://www.amazon.com/P3-Internation.../dp/B00009MDBU The Kill-O-Watt is for doing power from the AC side of the problem. On the DC side, you can use a DC clamp-on ammeter (one with a Hall probe), and measure each similarly colored cable bundle on the internal power wiring. And that can give a good idea of power consumption. The info collected that way, is ignoring the inefficiency of the power supply. And certainly, a power supply fault could account for a high power draw. If you attempt to measure a video card that way (the way that Xbitlabs used to do it), measuring the power connector on the end of the card, only catches a portion of the power. Both 12V and 3.3V rails are provided in the video card slot. The 12V rail comes from the two yellow wires on the 24 pin main connector. And the only other loads on that are fans. So "measure all fans", "measure two yellow wires", "subtract fans", gives 12V DC slot current. The 3.3V video slot power, is normally in the few watt range, and ignoring that is the best policy. To do that one properly, requires hacking in a shunt. And considering the power in that leg is small, it doesn't throw off power estimation that much, to ignore it. If you measure 3.3V entering the motherboard, you get the couple watts for the video card, plus 20-30W for the chipset. Or maybe the RAM power converter. What loads are on 3.3V, varies with motherboard design. My old P4, powers the RAM converter off 3.3V. More modern systems would run it off 12V. And finally, use "thermal common sense". If the exhaust air from the 255W PC is not warm, then there can't be 255W being dissipated. I use common sense as a double-check for instrument readings. If the heat coming out, doesn't match your measurement, then the measurement is wrong. The heat has to go somewhere, and the level of heat should match the power reading. Paul |
#3
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idle power of 8500 GT
On Monday, 26 August 2013 18:43:52 UTC+8, Paul wrote:
I would suspect a problem with the power measurement technique. I was measuring power at the wall socket. The measuring device had been sitting on the shelf for about 6 months. I have since checked it by testing other items for which I measured the power consumption before. It is now giving rather higher readings, so I conclude this power meter has gone bad (and it is 3 weeks out of warranty). |
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