Nvidia asked PCI Sig for more power
By Fuad Abazovic: Friday 29 April 2005, 16:55
WE HEARD THAT Nvidia asked PCI-Sig, the PCI and PCIe standardisation body, to provide some more juice for Nvidia's next generation cards. It turns out that 75W from external connector and 75W from motherboard is not enough. Nvidia wants an additional 75W for its G70 card.
This is something that was whispered at the WinHEC conference held this week in Seattle. When we dug a little bit more it turns out that there is such a proposal at PCI-Sig website. You can see it here and download it if you have a user name and password.
We also heard that Nvidia asked PCI-Sig to let it use two power connectors for the card, each providing 75W of power. If the Sig agrees, it seems that Nvidia next generation card might end up drying 225W of power. It's simple maths, 75 W from PCIe motherboard connector, and two times 75 from a six pin power connector.
It turns out that G70 might be one very power hungry card after all. Knowing Nvidia's troubles with its early jump to 130 nm I would suggest that this chip won't be 90 nm like ATI's R520 "Fudo". It has to be either 110 or 130, we suggest, as we don’t see Nvidia risking its NV30 failure one more time.
Whatever happens, this card is an autumn marchitecture and even if Nvidia announces it before then, I don’t think you will be able to get one until then. µ
