Did you know that it's
possible for a videocard GPU under load to suck up more power than the
CPU draws? It can happen, particularly with those pesky high end GPUs. The question PCSTATS is
interested in today is how much juice the nVidia G84 core draws. This GPU is
built on TSMC's 80nm technology, and while we have no way of measuring directly how much power
the MSI NX8600GTS-T2D256E-OC uses, PCSTATS can measure total system power draw.
We can take those results and compare the same basic installation with a couple
different videocards to get a rough idea of how power consumption fluctuates for
each specific videocard.
The test system will consist of an AMD
Athlon64 FX-62, Asus M2-CROSSHAIR motherboard, a reference Athlon64 FX-62
cooler, 2GB of Corsair's sweet but EOL'd
way too early Twin2X2048-6400C3 memory, a 74GB
WD Raptor SATA hard drive, an 8x Gigabyte DVD writer and a floppy drive. The Power supply used
here is nice little A-PFC compliant Seasonic S12-600W model.
The videocards to be
compared against the MSI NX8600GTS-T2D256E-OC come from both the nVIDIA and ATi
camps. Representing nVIDIA are the MSI NX8800GTX-T2D768E-HD (GeForce 8800GTX), Foxconn FV-N88SMCD2-ONOC, MSI
NX7950GX2-T2D1GE (GeForce 7950GX2), a MSI NX7900GTX-T2D512E
(GeForce 7900GTX) and a Gigabyte GV-NX76T256D-RH
(GeForce 7600GT) videocard. Representing ATi are an Asus X1900XTX 2DHTV/512M/A (Radeon X1900 XTX) and an Asus EAX1950PRO/HTDP/256M/A
(Radeon X1950 Pro) videocard.
Let's have a look now at the results, just remember the
Watts value is total system power draw. Lower numbers are
best.
videocard Power Consumption on Total System Power Draw Tests |
| Idle: |
Watts* |
Ranking |
|---|
| MSI NX8800GTX-T2D768E-HD |
196 |
   |
| Foxconn FV-N88SMCD2-ONOC |
171 |
|
| MSI NX7950GX2-T2D1GE |
183 |
|
| MSI NX7900GTX-T2D512E |
165 |
|
| Gigabyte GV-NX76T256D-RH |
140 |
|
| Asus EAX1900XTX 2DHTV/512M/A |
160 |
   |
| Asus EAX1950PRO/HTDP/256M/A |
150 |
|
 MSI NX8600GTS-T2D256E-OC |
127 |
   |
| MSI NX8600GTS-T2D256E-OC (774/2240) |
131 |
|
| Load: |
Watts* |
Ranking |
|---|
| MSI NX8800GTX-T2D768E-HD |
345 |
|
| Foxconn FV-N88SMCD2-ONOC |
302 |
|
| MSI NX7950GX2-T2D1GE |
315 |
|
| MSI NX7900GTX-T2D512E |
277 |
|
| Gigabyte GV-NX76T256D-RH |
213 |
|
| Asus EAX1900XTX 2DHTV/512M/A |
333 |
|
| Asus EAX1950PRO/HTDP/256M/A |
252 |
|
| MSI NX8600GTS-T2D256E-OC |
226 |
|
| MSI NX8600GTS-T2D256E-OC (774/2240) |
239 |
|
[ *This figure represents total
system power consumption in Watts, either with the system at idle, or the peak
value recorded while running 3DMark06. ]
The MSI NX8600GTS-T2D256E-OC is the most efficient
videocard at idle, with the system drawing just 127W of power. It beats out the Gigabyte GV-NX76T256D-RH (GeForce 7600GT) by 13W, and that's an older videocard. Power usage didn't go down by much on the whole, but at least it didn't follow the trend of high end cards by going up with the new generation. When overclocked the total system power draw rises by 4W.
With the computer system under load and the MSI
NX8600GTS-T2D256E-OC crunching some heavy-duty 3D graphics, the
PC consumes 226W of power. This is slightly more than the previous
generation GeForce 7600GT drew. On the grand scheme of things it's still quite low, but ATi and nVIDIA really need to cut power consumption in videocards even further. When PCSTATS overclockes the MSI NX8600GTS-T2D256E-OC, the power consumption rises by 13W. Still, on the whole total system power draw remains at decent levels.
Next up, PCSTATS answers that question you've been
waiting to find out.... overclocking an 8600GTS, just how fast does it go?
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