Most likely both. The drivers can't get the card into 2D power saving mode and there is something wrong with the chip itself aswell.
Sounds like a rush job allright.
its not a bug its a feature...
actually it seems to have been due to the architecture being borked
Fermi will be responsible for the global warming.Hell... it gets to be 30C here in Canada in a few months... Who knows how that will mess with things..
"We are currently keeping memory clock high to avoid some screen flicker when changing power states, so for now we are running higher idle power in dual-screen setups. Not sure when/if this will be changed. Also note we're trading off temps for acoustic quality at idle. We could ratchet down the temp, but need to turn up the fan to do so. Our fan control is set to not start increasing fan until we're up near the 80's, so the higher temp is actually by design to keep the acoustics lower." - NVIDIA PR
I am actually very surprised to see card makers actually putting out reference design cards. I would expect better cooling solutions right off the bat.
People who are asking about the 2 screen 90C thing... did any of you bother to visit the link this information was referring to? There's like a blue-colored paragraph with nVidia's response... Seriously, at least bother to read the source...
Has anyone considered the ambient temps during reviews are in the lows 20s. temps here in Africa usually hover around 35-40c so It could become a serious problem.
Hell... it gets to be 30C here in Canada in a few months... Who knows how that will mess with things..
That's very nice I'm sure, but 100% irrelevant to people who play video games, particularly as I understand they've majorly gimped all that for the 'gaming' cards
As it is, it then appears to be deadweight, and damn power-hungry deadweight at that...
EDIT: Perhaps more importantly, do you think I could run a GTX 470 on a reasonably decent 500W PSU? Q6600@3.4, 4GB DDR2, 1 HDD, 1 optical drive is the rest of the system, in an Antec Sonata III with the stock 500W PSU (Earthwatts 500W with 2x 17A 12v rails).
You don't have to understand French, but take a look at these temp. readings with that same case. They have an ambient temp. of 26C. I'm pretty sure it gets hotter than that in Australia.
A 4850 sells today on Newegg for $89.99 with free shipping.
That's the best value in the history of video cards.
Thank you for the explanation. I thought it's kind of counter-intuitive since those two tend to go hand in hand. (high res & AA performance)For 8x MSAA, NVIDIA just made some ROP changes. They have better compression and the additional ROPs help offset the penalty for AA'ing smaller primitives (which don't compress well).
As for why we're seeing the performance gap close between the cards at higher resolutions, at this point I don't have a good answer for that.
I don't mean to beat up the latest and greatest from NVIDIA, but this chip does have some problems, it seems. Even without comparing head to head against Cypress, there are glaring issues for a microprocessor from what I've read so far.
1) Idle power consumption and temperatures @50 MHz. Realistically, 50 MHz is, if at all, likely the lowest frequency a modern ASIC can maintain, and I doubt it can go any lower while functioning. And at the very minimal (possibly borderline) frequency, the chip is already burning.
2) If you watch the noise/power recording of the 480 @H, you can see the power consumption continuously rising (up to extra 50W) under same load as temperature rises. It's a known characteristics of 'leaky' chips.
3) In the same vain, the SLI power consumption according to AT review shows something is very off. The difference between single 480 and dual 480s is 372W, which is way over the official TDP. I'm guessing both cards under SLI are running outside the spec, and the magnitude is alarming.
Performance linear scaling never happens unless if there's an extreme bottleneck situation. Those numbers seems fishy to me, because the HD 5870 had a much higher overclock and didn't yield the same scaling results. So far, the PCGH is the worst review of Fermi I've seen.
This reads to me...... because ATi doesnt scale linear, NV cant, so PCGH is the worst review...??
Do you seriously think Nvidia transcends basic laws of physics?
2) If you watch the noise/power recording of the 480 @H, you can see the power consumption continuously rising (up to extra 50W) under same load as temperature rises. It's a known characteristics of 'leaky' chips.
considering it wasnt just the core/shaders that was overclocked it makes sense to me.Do you seriously think Nvidia transcends basic laws of physics?
Just to add If northern lights is basicly ready and its good AMD could score a knock out. What if AMD has the middle performance NL ready to go and its faster than Fermi I
. All I can see is After 6 months Fermi should be a sitting duck for AMD . AMD had to been expecting more from Fermi. If AMD could get middle p[erformance NL out in short order and beat the 480 it could be a hugh win for ATI/AMD. It should happen this way to. Unless AMD fell asleep at the wheel.
If AMD did have something good they'd be stupid to release it now when their 58xx cards are still competitive with Fermi and they basically own the midrange. No one would want thei old 58xx cards if they knew a better chip was coming out so they'd be their own worst enemy. At best I see them working with the old chips and providing new PCBs and more memory to compete with Fermi.
I only see them unveiling 6xxx card after NV has released some midrange cards and probably a dual GPU solution. That would allow them to maximize their investment in the 5xxx cards and then crush NV's new line.
Seriously though, if the card ran cooler and used around 250W peak, it would be a fantastic GPU. A 10-15% lead over a 5870 for a slightly more power usage and cost is fine. But more power hungry and hotter than a 5970 with that kind of performance, its bad. That is ultimately the final analysis.
Agreed. Its sad that the heat issue happened and what ever. If this thing would have come out with 512. It would kick ass. Prettty much. But thats not what happened.
But it does create any interesting whats next for AMD/ATI . WE know or I think AMD/ATI knows not to bring northernlights out on a new node. I don't believe that,so leaves the question Whats NL going to appear as 40nm (Middle performance) or highend.
. But it better be good because when NV gets Fermi to the 28 node. I can see at least a 75% gain in what we have seen so far . But Fermi I is same as PH I its a pass until II. So whats ATI refresh going to be . ATI/AMD not making alot of noise I smell a clubing coming for Femi I . But AMD better duck cause its clear hear Fermi II is going to stomp some ass. Plain as day to see. This thing has legs.
Also, I don't think anyone else mentioned this: 90C idle with dual displays.