| ASUS Radeon EAH5870 V2 Video Card |  |
| Reviews - Featured Reviews: Video Cards | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Written by Bruce Normann | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Sunday, 13 June 2010 | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Page 18 of 20
VGA Power ConsumptionLife is not as affordable as it used to be, and items such as gasoline, natural gas, and electricity all top the list of resources which have exploded in price over the past few years. Add to this the limit of non-renewable resources compared to current demands, and you can see that the prices are only going to get worse. Planet Earth is needs our help, and needs it badly. With forests becoming barren of vegetation and snow capped poles quickly turning brown, the technology industry has a new attitude towards suddenly becoming "green". I'll spare you the powerful marketing hype that I get from various manufacturers every day, and get right to the point: your computer hasn't been doing much to help save energy... at least up until now.
To measure isolated video card power consumption, Benchmark Reviews uses the Kill-A-Watt EZ (model P4460) power meter made by P3 International. A baseline test is taken without a video card installed inside our computer system, which is allowed to boot into Windows and rest idle at the login screen before power consumption is recorded. Once the baseline reading has been taken, the graphics card is installed and the system is again booted into Windows and left idle at the login screen. Our final loaded power consumption reading is taken with the video card running a stress test using FurMark. Below is a chart with the isolated video card power consumption (not system total) displayed in Watts for each specified test product:
* Results are accurate to within +/- 5W.
The ASUS EAH5870 V2 pulled 28 (158-130) watts at idle and 265 (395-130) watts when running full out, using the test method outlined above. The idle power consumption test is right on the factory number of 27W, and the load value is 77W above the 188W factory spec. That's about normal for this test, as it isn't possible to isolate the CPU load from the power measurements. You also have to factor in the efficiency of the power supply, which changes at different load levels. I think it's fair to say that the card pulls every bit of the full load current that is specified by the manufacturer, and maybe a few watts beyond that. So, no major surprises in the power consumption area; it's ATI's biggest GPU, running at high clock rates. A good thing it's built on 40nm technology, otherwise those two billion transistors would be pulling a lot more power and generating a lot more heat. I next offer you some final thoughts, and my conclusions. On to the next page...
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Comments
BTW, I was reading that one of the 12V rails is dedicated to a single PCI-E connector, while the other two are sharing the current between PCI-e and the MOLEX and SATA connectors, so verify that and use the dedicated connection if you can.
I just bought this card (After reading your review), but now I'm VERY worried about if my power supply (Corsair VX550W) can handle this card...
My System:
Q9650 Stock
Gigabyte GA-EP45-UD3P
2x2GB DDR2 1066MHZ OCZ Reaper Series
Western Digital Caviar Black 1TB
Western Digital Caviar Green 500GB
Western Digital Caviar Green 2TB
Zalman 9700NT
Antec 900 (4 Fans 120mm, 1 Fan 200mm)
Thank you for your consideration of this matter.
You said maximum power draw of this card is 265 (395-130) watts when running full out. What do you mean with 395 watts? Total System Power Consumption?
Maybe the power supply will work too forced? Or Maybe will work too forced if I overclock my CPU and Graphic Card?
Perhaps it will reduce the life of the power supply? I've been told when used heavily or over an extended period of time (1+ years) a power supply will slowly lose some of its initial wattage capacity.
My PSU is two years old, and I use it 24/7.
Thank you for your consideration of this matter.
What are you running on the PC during the 24/7? Is it just idling most of the time, or are you running applications that put a significant load on the PC?
At 80% load, your PSU will probably only last 10 years.....just a guess.
And Yes, Is it just idling most of the time. However, I play games almost every night and weekends. Very Demanding games like Bad Company 2 for example.
I have another question about your review. Does the CPU is also in full load? Or is it just the graphics card?
I've been thinking, and I think my supply might not be sufficient in the near future, when I change my current processor for an i7 or add a sound card, etc.. Am I right?
I dont know whether to buy a new psu or stay with the one I have.
What would you do if you were in my situation??
You can recoup some of your costs by selling the VX550, as it has a very good reputation.
I'n going to buy a new PSU, and will be a Corsair HX750 from Amazon. I think a Corsair HX850 is too much (Power and Price lol), unless I get $ 20 extra.
Thank you for everything ;)
EAH5870/2DIS/1GD5/V2
what does it meant of 2DIS-----> is that meant will just support 2 monitor???
atm i am running my system with a eah4870/512mb dk edition
wil it show a good increase in performance??