Gameguru Mania

[ggrobot]

X-bit labs take a closer look at the power consumption of modern graphics cards:

Quite naturally, the Radeon X1800 XT 512MB consumes a lot more power than the rest of the graphics cards used here in both idle and high-performance modes. In fact, its power consumption is close to that of premium solutions

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Source: GGMania headlines
GGMania.com - Daily Gaming and Tech news

[No.21]

Good that they brought it up, as it is an hidden cost when you buy an Gfx card. But.... not so extensiv on the possibilities you can check up on. What i mean is that i have wondered on how low you can go with the X18/900 cards. As you can dynamically change with software how much V you can feed the card with(GPU and Mem). So, they should test that, as i think that you can save pretty much on that when the card is idle. Something like AMD,s C&Q, Intel,s EIST. That they put more research on that and use in marketing would be a good idea, but especially for the enviorment and the consumers. As they save some €$£ when the energy bills come.
And it seems like ATi,s cards doesn't underclock itself more compared to the Nvidia cards, i wonder why :S . Hopefully ATi will do something about it in their drivers. But, if "YOU" have one of those card, then underclock it baby

Have done it with my card to an range where it doesn't create a split second distortion when it changes clock,s from 2D to 3D and vice versa.

Use tools/software like: Ati Tool from www.techpowerup.com