TheInternal
Senior member
Hey everyone.
I've been following the graphics wars on and off with a fair amount of interest over the last year.
I've noticed AMD seems to be putting out some parts that have crazy-low power requirements compared to competitive parts.
Is the cost of power to performance an indication of good engineering in your mind? I guess I tend to equate lower power with lower thermals, which often ties to higher overclockability.
I have a few tentative theories about why AMD's lowering of power usage may be going on (and would be interested in hearing other folks' speculation).
Firstly, if you're going to start slapping GPU's on die with CPUs (as AMD has suggested in the past), then getting the wattage down is probably vital to keeping heat down as well. So, in a sense, I wonder if this is them "prepping" to make that move.
The whole "green" thing has been increasingly popular, but considering the development cycles for GPUs, I doubt the development was done on the 4670 parts with the tree huggers in mind. (What do you think their motivation was for the power to performance ratio? To simply kick ass? Where will this lead?)
Oddly, despite the pleasing looking power numbers, there is a VERY obvious dearth of low profile 4600 and 4800 parts in the US market. None, in fact (and I've been looking for a few hours most weeks).
It seems counter-intuitive that 4600 and 4800 series cards wouldn't be out in droves in low profile, passively cooled configurations for tiny living room boxes across the country. Currently, the only offerings for low profile cards that I'd also feel comfortable gaming on are NVIDIA parts, and the 9600 GT and better require an additional 6 pin power connector.
Rampant speculation and theories welcomed.
I've been following the graphics wars on and off with a fair amount of interest over the last year.
I've noticed AMD seems to be putting out some parts that have crazy-low power requirements compared to competitive parts.
Is the cost of power to performance an indication of good engineering in your mind? I guess I tend to equate lower power with lower thermals, which often ties to higher overclockability.
I have a few tentative theories about why AMD's lowering of power usage may be going on (and would be interested in hearing other folks' speculation).
Firstly, if you're going to start slapping GPU's on die with CPUs (as AMD has suggested in the past), then getting the wattage down is probably vital to keeping heat down as well. So, in a sense, I wonder if this is them "prepping" to make that move.
The whole "green" thing has been increasingly popular, but considering the development cycles for GPUs, I doubt the development was done on the 4670 parts with the tree huggers in mind. (What do you think their motivation was for the power to performance ratio? To simply kick ass? Where will this lead?)
Oddly, despite the pleasing looking power numbers, there is a VERY obvious dearth of low profile 4600 and 4800 parts in the US market. None, in fact (and I've been looking for a few hours most weeks).
It seems counter-intuitive that 4600 and 4800 series cards wouldn't be out in droves in low profile, passively cooled configurations for tiny living room boxes across the country. Currently, the only offerings for low profile cards that I'd also feel comfortable gaming on are NVIDIA parts, and the 9600 GT and better require an additional 6 pin power connector.
Rampant speculation and theories welcomed.
