What exactly is GTX480s power usage like? Need input from owners

[Madcatatlas]

Looking at Ryan Smiths latest article concerning Nvidias GTC and its GPUs, i came over this bit:

With GF100 NVIDIA basically hit the wall for power consumption (and this is part of the reason current Tesla parts are running 448 out of 512 CUDA cores),

So i asked myself, is the power"wall/roof" lower (more restrictive) for professional uses of Fermi? Isnt it the same 300watt roof?

GTX480 has 480 cores active right? The highest Tesla has 448 cores active to not cross that bar?


GTX470 has 448 cores active. Hows the power effiency of this Fermi part?

Comparishon between the 470 and 480 when it comes to power at load and idle:
http://www.anandtech.com/bench/Product/160?vs=158

The difference seems to be 70 watts more used on a 480 on a full system load.



So to users/owners of GTX480 and 470 too if possible, whats your single card power efficiency/usage like? I guess you cant give the numbers for the GPU alone but any number would be interesting.


Theory: Nvidia purposely crossed the PCie spesifications to provide "enough" of a performance lead for the GTX480 over the competing product HD5870?

GTX470 is now considered onpar with the HD5870, winning some, losing some, never by much and it wouldnt cut it as Nvidias highest performing card.


THere are Quadros with 512 cores active? Anyone got power usage numbers for those?

 

[Puffnstuff]

According to nvidia a stock 480 should pull 250w. Oc it and the draw increases in a linear fashion. Run the cards at 100% especially with it oc'd and it will cross 300w draw. My system has drawn over 850w while running 3dmark vantage.

All in all I'm very pleased with my evga gtx480's and they've made my gaming experience a very smooth one. It's also been my experience that nvidia drivers are less problematic than ati drivers and I've run both.

 

[bunnyfubbles]

Fermi, and especially GF100, is simply inefficient for gaming relative to Evergreen. They don't have to push wall for Tesla and Quadro simply because they do not have to because while Fermi's strength may not be for gaming, it is definitely a beast of a GPGPU.

For instance consider the Quadro 5000 (IIRC the fastest Fermi based Quadro card readily available) is only 352 CUDA cores and clocked at a modest 513MHz. The Quadro 6000 is supposed to have only 448 cores and clocked below 600MHz as well...nVidia just doesn't have the same level of competition as here as they do for gaming.

All in all I'm very pleased with my evga gtx480's and they've made my gaming experience a very smooth one. It's also been my experience that nvidia drivers are less problematic than ati drivers and I've run both.

OP was asking about power usage, not your gaming experience or opinion on drivers.

No need to justify your multiple GTX480 setup in this thread.

 

[thedosbox]

I guess you cant give the numbers for the GPU alone but any number would be interesting.

xbit have the numbers for the cards alone.

 

[BFG10K]

The GTX480 has been shown to pull over 300W by itself, despite the “TDP” of 250W.