GTX 580 Power Throttling

[distinctively]

Originally Posted by Palliot

Which is exactly the same with previous gen ATI cards. Well almost the same, in the case of the 580 you gotta hack the drivers.




Really? So you are telling me AMD is listing maximum power consumption for unknown thermal viruses for all their GPUs and CPUs? Gee, I thought they listed TDP and ACP, just like intel, nvidia and everyone else. And I think they define it slightly different too.

There's a pile of measurements for the power draw of the cards all over the internet. AMD's numbers are legit. They've been tested and are reliable. NVidia's are ridiculous, hence the coined question "are those regular watts or nVidia watts.

The 580's potential power draw is beyond sane and it's only one chip. Good luck getting any life out of the card. As I've asked before, is trend going to be followed with the 560?

[APU_Fusion]

Originally Posted by distinctively

There's a pile of measurements for the power draw of the cards all over the internet. AMD's numbers are legit. They've been tested and are reliable. NVidia's are ridiculous, hence the coined question "are those regular watts or nVidia watts.

The 580's potential power draw is beyond sane and it's only one chip. Good luck getting any life out of the card. As I've asked before, is trend going to be followed with the 560?

What do you mean by "trend going to be followed with the 560?" I don't think even a fully enabled 560 (460) would come close to the 300 watt barrier. Why would they need a limiter? Do you mean that they would provide one so the reviewers numbers look better than they really are for marketing purposes? Just curious as to what you mean specifically (not questioning validity of statement)

[distinctively]

Originally Posted by APU_Fusion

What do you mean by "trend going to be followed with the 560?" I don't think even a fully enabled 560 (460) would come close to the 300 watt barrier. Why would they need a limiter? Do you mean that they would provide one so the reviewers numbers look better than they really are for marketing purposes? Just curious as to what you mean specifically (not questioning validity of statement)

What I mean is that when the 560 comes out, its going to have big power draw again, not improved. The throttle is an artificial means of controlling the TDP. The chip thermals have not been improved at all. If this is true, then this means that nVidia hasn't figured out how to reduce power draw for the architecture in its entirety. That doesn't look like a good avenue for cheaper cards or potential future mobile products.

[rambaldi]

Originally Posted by distinctively

Uh, the 580 is supposed to be a fixed GPU addressing thermal problems. This was the best they could do? The X2 was ATi's first dual GPU card. Yup, it was hot and power hungry. They improved upon that with the 5970 and yup, thats a hot card too. Of course, you don't here AMD bragging about better thermals with it.

The 3870x2 wishes to disagree with you. And the 2600 Xt x2 says pick me first. While the Sapphire X1950 Pro Dual wonders if it counts.

Also it seems my post responding to Redpriest has been lost

The gist was 700 gen uses software limites, initially looking for furmark.exe after that looking at the ratio of ALU to texture unit computations. 800 gen monitors the VRMs looking for specific overload coniditions (I think in hardware) if they occur then it drops the card down a powerplay level.

[APU_Fusion]

Originally Posted by distinctively

What I mean is that when the 560 comes out, its going to have big power draw again, not improved. The throttle is an artificial means of controlling the TDP. The chip thermals have not been improved at all. If this is true, then this means that nVidia hasn't figured out how to reduce power draw for the architecture in its entirety. That doesn't look like a good avenue for cheaper cards or potential future mobile products.

Ah gotcha. I wouldn't be surprised if the 560 used more power while fully enabled but I would be very surprised if they used a limiter as it wouldn't be needed (at least for the 300 watt issue). I wonder what impact in the real world the limiter is going to have if games don't ever hit the need for it? If the card with the limiter shows it not going over 300 watts does it make a difference in the end for the consumer as they are going to trade off heat and power for performance ala the 5970 overclocked (and over 300 watts). I would imagine delimiting the card and running it over 300 watts consistently could shorten the lifespan but by what amount? Interesting stuff.

[fusion]

Unless you bought your video card to run furmark, then it's a non-issue. If it operates way above TDP in games or regular application, then there's a problem. Over wise this is exactly like the 4870x2, small backlash, then forgotten.

[TakeANumber]

I think we saw an unaccounted danger of a driver-throttled card when Starcraft II first came out and paired with a driver that was destroying cards. The point is that some unexpected combinations may lead to Furmark-like results without intending it.

[distinctively]

Originally Posted by rambaldi

The 3870x2 wishes to disagree with you. And the 2600 Xt x2 says pick me first. While the Sapphire X1950 Pro Dual wonders if it counts.

Also it seems my post responding to Redpriest has been lost

The gist was 700 gen uses software limites, initially looking for furmark.exe after that looking at the ratio of ALU to texture unit computations. 800 gen monitors the VRMs looking for specific overload coniditions (I think in hardware) if they occur then it drops the card down a powerplay level.

Oops. The brain broke down there. I stand corrected.

[fusion]

Originally Posted by TakeANumber

I think we saw an unaccounted danger of a driver-throttled card when Starcraft II first came out and paired with a driver that was destroying cards. The point is that some unexpected combinations may lead to Furmark-like results without intending it.

Well i would say serves them right for buying sc2, but then again i hate activision.

but yeah, if it happens in games, then i'd say it's an issue. And if it's just throttling based on the executable, it's not that great of a solution. Though honestly, menu's should not be made to even remotely tax a GPU anyway, let alone more than the game. I guess that's another subject though.

[ShinyShoes]

Originally Posted by distinctively

Uh, the 580 is supposed to be a fixed GPU addressing thermal problems. This was the best they could do?

It seems the problems with GF100 were so severe not even a base layer respin and some other minor tweaking over the last 6-10 months has been able to improve it more than marginally.

Just holding my breath until we see the reality of Cayman now. nVidia have no more bullets left in the clip.