Higher performance vs. Lower power consumption
- Thread starter Techno+
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tongue_of_colicab
Veteran
I dont think there is a thing to prefer because obviously you only buy such a card if you are in need for alot of power. Than your not going to be botherd about the energy consumption.
Indeed. For example, I won't hesitate to buy a high-end, power-hungry GPU, but won't even consider doubling price and power consumption by going SLI/Crossfire.
Mefisutoferesu
Regular
Power consumption is pretty much the top of the list for me, but then again I'm a Silent/SFF type. About 40 Watts is around my maximum range, once you start exceeding that you're automatically off the list. After that it's a perf/price war with the remaining gpus, though passive cooling is a huuuge plus, and may make me rethink things. For example, 7600GT is a very nice card however it's pretty snotty as a passive card, alternately the 7600GS performs wonderfully, so I'd rather take the performance hit for the sake proper passive cooling.
Killer-Kris
Regular
Maybe I'm an odd ball, but I'm far more concerned with price/performance than performance/watt.
I care about power consumption only as far as how loud it makes the fan. I can't really handle loud HSFs keeping things cool -- if it requires some loud obnoxious HSF, then they can keep it and I'll wait for something more reasonable (or a third party HSF that is quieter).
Given how scalable GPUs are, I think performance per watt is a more desirable metric, as it'll allow you to scale higher at the high end and perform better at the low end (within cooling and power and so even price envelopes of the respective target platforms).
I agree. I tend to believe most people do base their purchase decision on similar logic.
Agreed - I do care about power, but only if performance is close enough. So, I'll likely buy a card performing 10-20% more slowly, if power consumption is at least 25% less. It's worth noting that I didn't do this when the x1800gto was killing the 7600gt in oblivion (but consuming far more power).
Because you can't afford it?
if you can afford SLI/xfire than why not?
if you can afford a multi gpu platform then you can afford a huge high res monitor and a single card would struggle to drive it at it's native res.
If we used that criteria, both 360 and PS3 would be in big trouble next to Wii.
Rangers said:
I wish people would stop with comments like that. There are perfectly good and legitimate reasons to run SLI, but also perfectly legitimate reasons to opt out of it, dependind on the tastes/needs of the user. Saying some technology should be banned is ridiculous, but the vitriolic "you are just jealous" answer just pollutes the debate.
Bull. I could afford it any day, but never will because I think it's senseless. To each his own.
And: for people who run their machine 24/7 like me, the power consumption is indeed also a financial issue. That's constant extra 0.1-0.2kW/h over the course of the year, which is much.
Money may not be the only factor that matters to us, you know.
From the data available, SLI/Crossfire market penetration is way, way below a single percent, and even the STEAM data, sampled from a pure online gamer community, shows that 99% of all those gamers run without these techniques. But - we still have to pay for the technical development, sampling, die space dedicated to the functionality, driver development, northbridge and motherboard cost..... And we are perfectly justified in questioning that.
