DX10 video cards to consume upto 300W.. (1 Viewer)

[Collin]

What the feck?

Power supply makers are being briefed now in order to make sure that the power supplies they are shipping by the end of this year are up to par with the high end GPU requirements for late 2006/early 2007. You will see both higher wattage PSUs (1000 - 1200W) as well as secondary units specifically for graphics cards. One configuration we’ve seen is a standard PSU mounted in your case for your motherboard, CPU and drives, running alongside a secondary PSU installed in a 5.25” drive bay. The secondary PSU would then be used to power your graphics cards.

http://www.anandtech.com/tradeshows/showdoc.aspx?i=2770

Consumption should go down after this generation, according to the article.. but I think when one has to consider a second PSU just for the sake of powering a high-end video card, these cards better be good.

Other random news:
No current LGA775 mobos are compatible with Conroe currently.
Crossfire is incompatible with Broadwater i965 (Conroe-supporting) chipset.
Conroe supply may be overwhelmed by demand.. (duh, I guess).
Mobo manufacturers had not even heard of AMD's 4x4 Octocore proposition until AMD PR'd it.
DDR2-800's yields are awful (let alone DDR2-1066!).
Memory makers don't expect DDR3 until end of 2007.
BenQ has BD-ROM down to $700USD already.
As of ICH8 southbridge, PATA will no longer be natively-supported.

 

[dandel26]

My god, when it comes time to update my computer its gonna cost heaps of money which i dont have at the moment.............

 

[AsyLum]

Not really, if you want cutting edge stuff, then it'll cost you, like its always been, but you could build a substantial 'beast' for a fraction of the cost.

Rofl @ DDR2, that seems like a sinking ship doesnt it :S

 

[Mattius]

300 Watts for that! Thats getting stupid!
you can get computers that run on less, i dont see the justification. CPU's high end run on less power, a fan shouldn't be more then 20w so where is it all going? If that is the case Nvidia and ATI need to rebuild their gpus like AMD did. People will stop buying computers onces they start consuming that sort of power.

 

[AntiHyper]

right now i'm running on 250Watts PSU

*reads the manual* "... Feel free to add more hard drives, with the 'state of the art' 250Watts you can be assured that you would have the power."

I'm still surprised tho that I can have a 6600GT with it.

 

[Collin]

This is pretty much a side-effect when two extremely aggressive competitors fight for dominance in the upcoming crucial DX10 arena. DX10, being rewritten from the ground up boasts numerous enhancements to the current API and it's implementation will be for Vista PCs only. Basically, this is gonna be a very important generation of video cards and at the moment all effort at that front is directed towards performance. Hence, you get other 'trivial issues' arising such as excessive power consumption, which should rectify itself (or atleast have it's effects lessened) after subsequent revisions.

Personally, I think it's a bit dissappointing, but high end PC gaming was never cheap to begin with. As long as performance holds up and that none of them get bogged down with bugs concerning implementing a DX10 framework, ATi and nVidia will have absolutely no problems with sales.

 

[Templar]

I believe that this is just a disclaimer to cover graphics makers just in case power usage does sky rocket. 6800Ultra came with two molex connectors, but really one was sufficient. The 400W PSU warning was similar, it really didn't need that much power to run.

As for the 5.25" PSU, I've seen reviews on it. While it does provide 300W of 12V at a very stable voltage (duh, it only need to output one voltage instead of three in a PSU), the dual 40mm fans are just way too loud. In addition you can already obtain 1kW PSUs, so the auxiliary is a rather stupid idea.

I thought the latest revision of the Intel 975X motherboard supported Conroe.

 

[Collin]

6800 Ultra was a dead-set culprit with two molexes aswell as being double-slot thick. That card was FAT.

I certainly hope it's not 300W. I would reaaaaaaally prefer not to have to consider multiple PSUs when I've already got my mind occupied with choosing core components. If it's indeed the case with them blanketting over a potential worst scenario; I guess it's a good thing since we should be expecting 300W at the WORST, not as a promise.

 

[Templar]

Well with Conroe using less than 100W a 500W PSU would probably do, even with a 300W graphics card, although it could be pushing it on a 975X chipset (very power hungry). I suppose since 600+W PSU are not unheard of now, it wouldn't matter that much unless you go for Crossfire/SLi. And when you really calculate it your current system does have a lot of redundancy, I'm sure mine uses 250, 300W tops on a Prescott (103W TDP) and 6800GT.

The Ultra was a good card, it's just that most GT were scaled down Ultra rather than those that failed the test like with the current GTX/GT, unless you were one of the unlucky people like me who actually has a GT that can't be pushed to Ultra clockspeed (who cares, it benches better than an Ultra anyway).

 

[Collin]

The thing is though I would think most people who would go top-end DX10 would tend to be keen OCers. They'd tend to be the ones with souped up DFI boards, OCed high-end Conroes, 3-4GB RAM, X-Fi sound card, several hard disks/optical drives and perhaps even a physics card. It sure wouldn't need 1000Ws of power, but I'd personally consider 650W+ just to be safe.

GT was awesome. ATi made a big mistake disabling 4 pipes for their X800PRO.

 

[Templar]

Actually overclockers would stick to 512MB modules of RAM, since they still offer better latency than larger sticks.

I had the choice between GT and X800Pro. I believed in the extra pipeline and it paid off. Should have got a Gainward Golden Sample though, GT capable of 425/1200, gives the X800XT a run for its money.

 

[Collin]

That's if they're purely in it for the OCing. But someone who invests in one of these top-end DX10 cards would certainly be a 'gamer-hardware enthusiast'.. and assuming they're planning to adopt Vista, I'd certainly choose quantity of RAM (4GB) over latency (2GB) for the sake of general gaming performance.. assuming we're gonna go for a 4-slot mobo.

I had a friend who chose X800PRO while I got the XT. His favorite game was Doom 3 too.. sucked in