Power efficiency

[koshling]

Looking for advice on which GPu family is the most power efficient at modest loads. Mostly my usage is not graphically intense, but I occasionally game lightly (diablo, Starcraft, civ) at a res of 1900x1200. My current build has a 6850, which basically copes fine. However, I value quietness, and my ambient temperatures can be high (room often gets to 90 degrees or so). I'm planning a new build once has well releases, but I'm unsure on GPu. Power efficiency (I.e. low thermals and noise at mid level performance) will be my primary criteria.

Nvidia or ati? Also anything I should be waiting for (no more than a couple of months though)?

 

[Soulkeeper]

The 7000 series radeons are very efficient, especially at idle.
The 8000 series will come out sometime later in the year, but I doubt they will bring much improvement to the table (same process tech, essentially the same design).

 

[zaydq]

nvidia is definitely a lot better in efficiency... though the lower 7000 series amd cards are great too. Ie 77xx,78xx.

 

[Yuriman]

You can't go wrong with any NV card or AMD 77xx and 78xx. The 79xx eat a bit more power but still offer excellent priceerformance.

 

[bononos]

Looking for advice on which GPu family is the most power efficient at modest loads. Mostly my usage is not graphically intense, but I occasionally game lightly (diablo, Starcraft, civ) at a res of 1900x1200. My current build has a 6850, which basically copes fine. However, I value quietness, and my ambient temperatures can be high (room often gets to 90 degrees or so). I'm planning a new build once has well releases, but I'm unsure on GPu. Power efficiency (I.e. low thermals and noise at mid level performance) will be my primary criteria.

Nvidia or ati? Also anything I should be waiting for (no more than a couple of months though)?

Don't know if there are any reviews measuring 'light gaming'. The latest generation from both companies are quite good when it comes to power consumption generally.

 

[blastingcap]

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/HD_7790_Dual-X/24.html

 

[Silverforce11]

High ambient temps, you want coolers that exhaust hot air out the case, not open fan designs that dump all that heat into your case, requiring more fans to suck out the heat adding to the noise and power use.

NV reference blowers are simply better than AMD, they operate with less noise for similar cooling.

The games you mentioned tend to run better on NV hardware as well. Also you would want something of an upgrade from a 6850, so at least twice as fast to bother spending money on it. IMO, reference blower GTX 660ti is the best option.

 

[MrK6]

Any blower/radial fan will be significantly louder than an axial design. As long as he has adequate case ventilation (which would be a good idea anyway considering his high ambients), it shouldn't matter much. Look for a card with good performance/watt (http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Inno3D/iChill_GTX_650_Ti_Boost/27.html) and then buy an aftermarket axial design with good reviews. A 660, 7870, 660 Ti, 7950 would be the range to consider for a sufficient performance improvement, and I would lean towards choosing nvidia considering the games you play.

 

[parvadomus]

I would get a 7950. It will be better for future games than a 7870 or 660Ti (it OC like hell too, easily surpassing 7970/680 with a bit of luck), and seriously any mid-high end gpu of this generation will run all that games at very high FPS (660 or 7870 and up) on ultra settings.

 

[Arkadrel]

Well there are OC 7790 models that are like ~20%+ faster than a stock 6850.

idle power:
7790 = 7w
6850 = 19w (~170% more power used)

avg power (playing crysis 2):
7790 = 69w
6850 = 88w (~27% more power used)


Also look into undervolting.
You ll be surprised how much that can lower temps, and fan speeds/noise.

Just remember to stability test, once you start lowering voltage's.