RV770 power consumption at idle: is it broken, and can it be fixed?

If you're having card problems I feel bad for you son, I've got 99 problems but heat ain't one.

I have a 4870X2, and CCC is telling me that its idling at 66C, at 500/900. This is in the middle of summer, in a smallish room, with little ventilation. Gets up to 83C under load.

 

dooby your going to hate me for saying this but as far as I can tell you spent a lot of money for roughly 10% increase in fps ?

 

I would certainly like to see this implemented

 

Ya... that's exactly what he did

 

Davros, do you mean from the 8800GTX SLI to the 4870X2?

If so, just a couple of points to make my purchasing clearererer. I game at 2560x1600. At that res, the 8800s were "ok" but not great. Im now enjoying that res with 8xFSAA and still getting better results.

This 4870X2 at idle and under load is as loud as a single GTX. Two GTXs are *twice* as loud.

I havent had success with nvidia drivers in a long time. Since the day I plugged them in, I had problems with the drivers, crashing and not properly restarting until I restarted Windows. Also for the times I did want to scale the resolution down, in over a year of owning the GTXs I only ONCE got the driver setting for "do not scale image to panel" to work. So if in Crysis I wanted to game at 1920, it would still be the size of the 30" and therefore blurry. With ATi, Ive never had this problem, and I game with black borders around the image, but its still crisp.

Also, both cards started to fail towards the end. One pretty much died completely, and the other had to be clocked at 350core, 300mem for it not to hang, and even then I could only run none heavy stuff like Titan Quest.

So, moving from 8800GTX SLI to 4870X2 has given me higher FPS at higher settings, a quieter room and less stress with crappy drivers. I was also in need of a new card fairly desperately, and I couldnt hack the drivers anymore, which detered me from the 280GTX. Also, I run my own business, which makes me a nice bit of money, so Im not struggling for cash. I have two 30" monitors and a couple of laptops just for my work machines (of 7 in my house) so whats £300 compared to that?

 

HD4850 IceQ4

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/HIS/HD_4850_IceQ4/24.html

 

If you were worried about that you wouldn't leave your computer on all the time and wouldn't be buying high-end cards. As for being a sizeable difference, in a month it would amount to much less than 0.5% for an average household, much less for anyone with electric heat; and for many that 0.5% would amount to the price of a cup of coffee at best over a year.

So let's say the price ends up being about $10 diff a year on something most people here upgrade on an annual basis at 20-60 times that cost. That's sizeable?

Also remember you're howing system power usage, not the card, so system to system it's different, as Dave's link shows the actually card difference is about 20W, and under usage draws less.

Talking energy savings on the high end cards is as funny as talking about fuel economy of a Lambo versus Ferrari. If these were HTPCs it would be a big deal, but I don't know of any gamer who would turn down a GTX280 just so they could save a few watts by getting a GF9600GT/HD4650.

 

Yeah but a GTX 280 burns about the same watts idle as a 9600GT.

But yeah your point is clear. ~40W of extra waste is not that big of a deal.

 

Would you use a Lambo or a Ferrari as a run-around to go down to the shops? No, you use your Ford Focus to do that. But you know what, it's possible to own both.

 

I don't think anyone's got a problem with high power use in return for performance. The gripe is why do we have such high power use when there's very little performance going on at all ie in 2D mode?

Even your hypothetical Ferrari doesn't drink fuel until you start the engine and drive it around at speed.

 

The analogy lost equivelence there. PC Idle doesn't equate to engine switched off - engine off would be PC powered down, or at least in standby mode, in which cases the graphics card draw would be zero.

 

Yeah guess it sucks regional pricing, next we'll compare the price of cards in foreign countries next too. So your country has terrible energy prices (mine is medium annoyance, but it also pays the bills, see location, I'm not in the US ) you feel the need to complain about and focus on, but you leave your PC on all the time doing nothing? Brilliant, maybe that's why energy prices are so high where you are. I poke a stick in the ground oil & gas comes out, what's your excuse, if living in the UK energy is scarce?

Sure just like you compare the extra $400 over MSRP difference for the lifespan of the GTX 280 over the HD4670?
Doubtful, very doubtful.
Hey I only get 2 fps in Crysis @ 640x480, but this GMA3000 is the price/performance leader in the long run.

No I'm saying if I saw a ferrari owner whinning about gas prices at the pump, I turn the hose on him and light a match! It's an empty statement about economy of the high end cards.

Baloney! You don't mind it costing you significantly more when playing at a tiny fraction faster, but oh my god when idle it's killing the planet and wasting my money.
WTF are you doing running it idle if you're so worried about money?

Like Dave mentione 0 vs idle is still higher on the GTX260 than the difference between it and the HD4870.

It's like complaining about the energy efficiency of a lightbulb you leave on in your closet doing nothing, just so it's conveniently on when you open the door for 20 mins every day. Yeah change that lightbulb to compact fluorescent so you can 'save money and the environement' instead of saving more by just turning it off. Brilliant !

 

I pay about $0.12/kW hr. The electric rate is 20% more than last year here.

((40W * 24hrs/day * 7days/wk * 4 weeks) / 1000) * $0.12/kWhr = $3.23/mo

So yeah if you leave it on continuously, it'll cost you something. Sorta.

 

Swaaye, I'll stick to Canadian math where there's only 4-5 weeks in a month not 30 (you could of course just drop your 7 and only multiply by 30 days).

 

So now it's 24 hrs x 7 hours? The time-continum ends at the border I guess. Don't change your numbers to match your result, re-think your numbers, and come to a new result.

Simple, you pay 12c Per KW/h it should work out to about $3-4/mth not $24.

 

Chill, Grape.

I'm sick and am a little out of it. I've been staring at that trying to figure out what was wrong with it. Believe it or not, the point was to prove that it is insignificant. Well, at least that it's insignificant here. I still feel kinda guilty about running another 40W for no good reason though.

 

I'm chillin', the first one was a razz and then you edited it a few times, but kept the same end. Just pointing that out to help the correction along, main reason being $24/mth is alot, $3-4 no so much.

Anywhoo, it's nice to not waste 40W, but as was my point, if people really care, then the power button is the best option. When you're actually playing the difference favours the HD4870, so better/equal performance at less/equal power, so not a big issue, and definitely nothing I really care if ATi or nV focus on so much as getting even lower numbers from hybrid solutions. For the high end gaming cards, IMO focus on raw power and features, for HTPCs which need to stay in sleep mode, etc to be effective, then yes idle power is a huge deal.

 

Got into a conversation with my mum this weekend about her new computer and costings of things, and she doesn't want to leave it on all the time because of it costing too much. I seriously doubt her machine draws 100W (2ghz coreduo, integrated everything).

Then I realised she doesn't have one energy saver light in the house. I, ironically enough, have an OC'd Q6600, a 4870X2, loooads of hdds, and two 30" monitors, and every light in our house is an energy saver.

40-100W in your computer over a competing card isn't gonna mean dick in the long run if you step back and look at your whole world.

 

It's just that sort of thought that makes those of us on a budget cringe.

Sure, if you ONLY focus on the 40w savings from running your computer anywhere between 4-24 hours a day it seems insignificant.

Then again. So does leaving a light on in a room 24 hours a day. Or maybe a fridge that's less efficient than another fridge. Or possibly an air conditioner that's less efficient than another one. Or a water heater. Or grocery shopping and not bothering with coupons or sales. Or not comparing prices of items before buying them.

ALL of that is pretty darn insignificant when viewed on it's own. However, since I've started keeping an eye on efficiency and conservation (when it doesn't impact daily life) I'm easily seeing savings per year of anywhere between 750-1000 USD. And yes a savings of 40w 8/hr per day most certainly contributes to that.

I suppose I could just say, pshaw it doesn't matter. Then again I could just opt not to get an energy efficient fridge, air conditioner, washer/dryer, TV, etc. Or hell I don't even need those flourescent energy saver bulbs for my lights since again it's pretty insignficant on its own.

Bleh, then again I suppose most people on enthusiast forums wouldn't understand. And, BTW - yes I do love the things money I earn can buy me. But why waste it when you don't have to.

Regards,
SB