archsan wrote:@obobkivisch
Sure, that's why I often thought to myself, what the hell are we really arguing about? We have/had different expectations. 😀 Maybe I shouldn't play BS1 at 1600x1200 with the 7800GS, silly me...
I don't honestly remember what my 7900GS did for that game, but I know it ran well (no lag). Wasn't 1600x1200 though. 😊
(Voodoos and GF4s aside)... Even the underclocked 750? 😀 Hmm the numbers show there's the potential for just that. Already better at default than GF7950GX2 for sure, even GF7900GTX. Even close enough to the GF7x00GS (and there's the lower clock non-Ti model still, or cough cough maybe underclocked 750).
Point: Maybe the turning point on power efficiency levels comes with this new Maxwell generation (and hopefully AMD's latest/nextgen too)?
I think yes Maxwell is a "turning point" for power draw on modern cards. And yes the 750s are doing better than 7950GX2 and GTX in terms of max draw. I don't have a GTX to play around with, but the GX2 isn't so awful at idle - the worst power draw I've seen out of mine are running SLI-AA.
Fine, that 15W (don't lower that to 10W and make it sound worse please 😉, because I didn't mention that) for GF7-like-performance thing, it was not a "claim", I've been outright saying that it was a "guess" (too optimistic? maybe), and yes it was an untested conjecture on my part, alright? 😀 Yet I wouldn't be surprised if that were (close to being) true, especially since there's a 8 year gap between them. Now I'm really gonna get one of the fanless models (and maybe... wait, how much that Keithley multimeter thing costs... um, never mind). Thanks for firing me up anyway. 😉
I wasn't meaning to say 10W to make it sound worse, but to reference the actual measured #s for idle state. 😊 Sorry for that not being more clear.
There *is* a long time gap, but remember that in that time gap we also saw power consumption explode for cards, and GF7 was hailed (when it was new) as being a "turning point" for power consumption after GeForce FX and 6.
OK so thanks for that link, and here are the numbers: it idles at 4W, blu-rays at 6W, [missing numbers: running 50% underclocked -- hmm would 30W be so outrageous here I wonder... ] averages at 52W, peaks at 57W, maxes at 66W. How bad is that compared to GTX660 (and 7950GX2, 7900 GTX) honestly? By default it's already close enough to 7900GS (wish we have the numbers there as well), and again, who knows, if some serious underclocking is involved...
GTX 660 is faster/more powerful, and should've been included on those TPU charts as well (if it isn't, dig around for another review - I know they've measured it). At idle the 660 is about the same (~10W figures), under load the 660 can break 100W, but it performs better.
* Just looked and yeah it appears on the idle chart: 7W. On Blu-ray 10W, and on average 112W. [there is a difference between 660 and 660 Ti btw]
The 7950GX2 is ~120W, so about on par with the 660; I don't have any good #s I can lay hands on for idle. I don't honestly remember if my GX2s underclock at idle either. GTX I think is 70-80W (I don't have a GTX). The GX2 has an advantage in that it can do SLI-AA on-card, so you can have 16x MSAA if you're okay with the performance hit (it will perform about on par with a single 7950, which is still very usable in many games). AFAIK there's nothing out there that the GX2/GTX can run that the GS cannot though - they're too close in performance (and identical in features).
From #s that I found on the GS, 30-40W isn't unreasonable expectation in real-world gaming either. 😀