Power Consumption and Temperatures
With these new GPUs being based on the Evergreen architecture, we can assume they will be reasonably efficient, but let’s take a look.
The HD 6870 uses more power than the HD 5850 – something we didn’t expect but saw repeated over and over. Either AMD’s testing is off or our gaming-based tests aren’t what AMD was really looking for here. The 279 watts of total system power draw still aren’t as much as even the reference GTX 460 1GB though, so AMD still holds the advantage here.
On the other hand, the HD 6850 does use less power than the HD 5830 (that runs at higher clock than the HD 5850, hence THAT power difference) and about the same power as the NVIDIA GTX 460 768MB card.
Our CrossFire power tests show that the 6870 cards are using about 156 watts of power (each) while running Bad Company 2 and the HD 6850 uses about 142 watts.
Temperatures are tricky because they depend a lot on the cooling solution at work with each GPU but can still provide an interesting data point. For instance, the new HD 6870 runs about 10 degrees C hotter than the HD 5850 and the reference GTX 460 1GB card easily becoming the “hottest” card in this segment. The HD 6850 doesn’t fare much better as it runs hotter than anything else we compared it to.
Obviously the HD 6850 chip is running cooler than the HD 6870 chip but AMD’s cooling solution choices are keeping them at the same level.
Interesting article, I will
Interesting article, I will post about it on http://twitter.com/
Today’s cards are about
Today’s cards are about offering gamers more bang for the money and more performance per watt, and the prices of both 6870 and 6850 well within reach for most.
On top of that, the enhancements on both 6870 and 6850 have improved anisotropic filtering algorithm and also looked into issues which caused some visual anomalies in the past generation.
Interesting comparison.
Interesting comparison. Though it is quite obvious there is an improvement of performance for the new cards, it may not be the best time to upgrade. With the way technology is advancing, we can expect better models to come out annually. Save the money to purchase an even more powerful model next year. That is if your current rig is powerful enough to handle today;s graphics.
Simon – http://www.idpro.co.uk
I have heard that Evergreen
I have heard that Evergreen architecture and the corresponding graphics card are very good in performance.
There are so many IT tools and devices that people may like but with reviews of the IT tools can help a customer make better choices. They can also learn from the ratings given for the IT products. A printer is known to be a useful technology.
Simon – http://www.idpro.co.uk