MultiGPU Update: Two-GPU Options in Depth
by Derek Wilson on February 23, 2009 7:30 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Power Consumption
All these results are taken at the wall (total system power) running the 3dmark Vantage POM (parallax occlusion mapping) shader test. This test uses very little other system resources and focuses on the GPU. This means that the numbers you see here are LOWER than total system power while playing a game -- often by more than 50W and sometimes 100W, depending on the game, benchmark and system. These numbers show clearer differences between GPU power draw, which is why we stick with them. These numbers should NOT be used to determine a proper PSU for a certain graphics card solution unless you consider a couple hundred watts of headroom in your calculation.
For idle power, NVIDIA's 55nm GT200 parts take the cake. We don't have a 55nm GTX 260 in house, but we would expect it's idle power to come in on par or lower than our GTX 285. AMD's 4850 hangs with the lower power NVIDIA options, but both the 512MB and 1GB 4870 variants pull more power than any of our other single GPU solutions.
For multiGPU options, SLI definitely draws the most power. The X2 single card multiGPU options are better than the two card solutions, and this carries over to NVIDIA as well with the GTX 295 coming in at lower power than 2x GTX 260s. If we had tested two 1GB 4870 cards, we would expect to see more than 285W power draw at idle, which is quite high indeed.
Things change up a bit when we explore load power draw. The lowest idle power parts end up drawing the most power under load. The additional draw of the GTX 280 and GTX 285 are not unexpected as they offer a typically higher level of performance for their power. All our multiGPU options do draw more power than all of our single GPU configurations, so, though we didn't calculate them, you can expect performance per watt advantages where ever a single GPU leads any multiGPU option in performance.
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
95 Comments
View All Comments
kmmatney - Monday, February 23, 2009 - link
Especially at the 1920 x 1200 resolution - that resolution is becoming a sweetspot nowadays.just4U - Monday, February 23, 2009 - link
I disagree. I see people finally moving away from their older 17-19" flat panels directly into 22" wide screens. 24" and 1920/1200 resolutions are no where near the norm.SiliconDoc - Wednesday, March 18, 2009 - link
Correct, but he said sweet spot because his/her wallet is just getting bulgy enough to comtenplate a movement in that direction... so - even he/she is sadly stuck at "the end user resolution"...lol
Yes, oh well. I'm sure everyone is driving a Mazerati until you open their garage door....or golly that "EVO" just disappeared... must have been stolen.
DerekWilson - Monday, February 23, 2009 - link
The 1GB version should perform very similarly to the two 4850 cards in CrossFire.The short answer is that the 1GB version won't have what it takes for 2560x1600 but it might work out well for lower resolutions.
We don't have a 1GB version, so we can't get more specific than that, though this is enough data to make a purchasing decision -- just look at the 4850 CrossFire option and take into consideration the cheaper price on the 1GB X2.
politbureau - Tuesday, June 1, 2010 - link
I realize this is an older article, however I always find it interesting to read when upgrading cards.While I find it admirable that Derek has compared the 'older' GTX 280 SLI scaling, it is unfortunate that he hasn't pointed out that it should perform identically to the GTX 285s if the clocks were the same.
This was also passed over in the "worthy successor" article, where it does not compare clock for clock numbers - an obvious test, if we want to discover the full value of the die shrink.
I recently 'upgraded' to 3 GTX 285s from 3 GTX 280s through warranty program with the mfg, and there is little to no difference in performance between the 2 setups. While cabling is more convenient (no 6 to 8 pin adapters), the 285s won't clock any better than my 280s would, Vantage scores are within a couple hundred points of each other at the same clocks (the 280s actually leading), and the temperature and fan speed of the new cards hasn't improved.
I think this is a valuable point in an article that compares performance per dollar, and while slightly outside the scope of the article, I think it's a probabtive observation to make.