Author Topic: Radeon 9800 power consumption? (Read 266 times)

Sancho · « **on:** October 02, 2003, 04:58:45 AM »

The Radeon 9800 is a standard AGP card which means 25W is the most power it can get from the AGP slot--correct me if I'm wrong there. But it has a 4 pin molex connector like a hard drive for extra oomph when running 3d games. ATIs specs simply say "we recommend a 300W or higher power supply" blah blah blah. I can't find any specifics in the manual or on the web. Anybody seen total power consumption figures under full load for this card?

Skuzzy · « **Reply #1 on:** October 02, 2003, 09:23:23 AM »

Actually Sancho, the AGP 2.0 spec allows for up to 48W of power, over the bus.

The 9800Pro is around 80W maximum.

Sancho · « **Reply #2 on:** October 02, 2003, 02:09:01 PM »

holy cow, that's a lot of juice! looks like I grossly underestimated it. thanks skuzzy.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #3 on:** October 02, 2003, 03:17:23 PM »

That ain't nothing Sancho. The NVidia 5900Ultra takes 106W.

However, ATI's power consumption will be dropping dramatically as they have gotten low-k to work on their dies. The new 9600XT is a .13 micron part with low-k and can be clocked up to 600Mhz (core clock) and it does not have an external power plug.
Simply means ATI will be able to get more from less in the very near future.