Temperatures & Acoustics / Power Consumption
To be honest with you, I was quite surprised how much less heat a cut-down G200 core produces when compared to the fire-breathing monster the GTX 280 is. Not only is the load temperature significantly reduced but the idle temperature is also cut down by a good amount. However, after gaming with this card for over two weeks it is quite evident that it still produces a good amount of heat since the temperatures in my computer room rose significantly after less than 30 minutes of gaming. It is for this reason that we are seriously considering ambient temperature testing being part of our testing regimen. But more on that in another review…
If you have a good memory and you read our http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...-geforce-gtx-280-1gb-superclocked-review.html , you may remember that I had some strong words about how loud the GTX 280 was. In order to keep the overly hot core at an acceptable temperature, the fan on that card spun up to astronomical levels. Interestingly enough, our GTX 260 was extremely quiet no matter how much load we put it under while still maintaining acceptable temperatures. This goes a long way to show everyone that even though this is a subjective test (no, I am not deaf), that the GTX 260 has been cut down to sufficient levels that it produces significantly less heat than the GTX 280 which in turn leads to a quieter fan speed profile. Indeed, the acoustical footprint of the BFG GTX 260 card was less noticeable than the HD4870 while gaming.
For this test we hooked up our power supply to a UPM power meter that will log the power consumption of the whole system twice every second. In order to stress the GPU as much as possible we once again use the Batch Render test in 3DMark06 and let it run for 30 minutes to determine the peak power consumption while letting the card sit at a stable Windows desktop for 30 minutes to determine the peak idle power consumption.
Please note that after extensive testing, we have found that simply plugging in a power meter to a wall outlet or UPS will NOT give you accurate power consumption numbers due to slight changes in the input voltage. Thus we use a Tripp-Lite 1800W line conditioner between the 120V outlet and the power meter.
If the temperature testing surprised us, the power consumption of the GTX 260 absolutely floored everyone in the room. What we are talking about here is a 64W difference under full load between the GTX 280 and 260 which seems to tie in quite well with Nvidia’s claimed power consumption for each card. For those of you who were wondering, Nvidia rates the GTX 280 as requiring 236W while the GTX 260 requires about 182W. Since our test puts more strain on the graphics card than normal applications, it naturally represents a “worst case” scenario but it also gives you guys a good idea of where these cards stand.
The next thing to take into account is the idle power consumption which is also very, very good. It seems like Nvidia’s dynamic clock and voltage control is paying off in spades.
Temperature Testing
To be honest with you, I was quite surprised how much less heat a cut-down G200 core produces when compared to the fire-breathing monster the GTX 280 is. Not only is the load temperature significantly reduced but the idle temperature is also cut down by a good amount. However, after gaming with this card for over two weeks it is quite evident that it still produces a good amount of heat since the temperatures in my computer room rose significantly after less than 30 minutes of gaming. It is for this reason that we are seriously considering ambient temperature testing being part of our testing regimen. But more on that in another review…
Acoustical Properties
If you have a good memory and you read our http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/foru...-geforce-gtx-280-1gb-superclocked-review.html , you may remember that I had some strong words about how loud the GTX 280 was. In order to keep the overly hot core at an acceptable temperature, the fan on that card spun up to astronomical levels. Interestingly enough, our GTX 260 was extremely quiet no matter how much load we put it under while still maintaining acceptable temperatures. This goes a long way to show everyone that even though this is a subjective test (no, I am not deaf), that the GTX 260 has been cut down to sufficient levels that it produces significantly less heat than the GTX 280 which in turn leads to a quieter fan speed profile. Indeed, the acoustical footprint of the BFG GTX 260 card was less noticeable than the HD4870 while gaming.
Power Consumption
For this test we hooked up our power supply to a UPM power meter that will log the power consumption of the whole system twice every second. In order to stress the GPU as much as possible we once again use the Batch Render test in 3DMark06 and let it run for 30 minutes to determine the peak power consumption while letting the card sit at a stable Windows desktop for 30 minutes to determine the peak idle power consumption.
Please note that after extensive testing, we have found that simply plugging in a power meter to a wall outlet or UPS will NOT give you accurate power consumption numbers due to slight changes in the input voltage. Thus we use a Tripp-Lite 1800W line conditioner between the 120V outlet and the power meter.
If the temperature testing surprised us, the power consumption of the GTX 260 absolutely floored everyone in the room. What we are talking about here is a 64W difference under full load between the GTX 280 and 260 which seems to tie in quite well with Nvidia’s claimed power consumption for each card. For those of you who were wondering, Nvidia rates the GTX 280 as requiring 236W while the GTX 260 requires about 182W. Since our test puts more strain on the graphics card than normal applications, it naturally represents a “worst case” scenario but it also gives you guys a good idea of where these cards stand.
The next thing to take into account is the idle power consumption which is also very, very good. It seems like Nvidia’s dynamic clock and voltage control is paying off in spades.