Power Consumption

Cooling modern video cards is becoming more and more difficult, especially when users are asking for quiet cooling solutions. That's why the engineers are now paying much more attention to power consumption of new video card designs.


The three result values are as following:

• Idle: Windows sitting at the desktop (1024x768 32-bit) all windows closed, drivers installed.
• Average: 3DMark03 Nature at 1280x1024, 6xAA, 16xAF. This results in the highest power consumption. Average of all readings (two per second) while the test was rendering (no title screen).
• Peak: 3DMark03 Nature at 1280x1024, 6xAA, 16xAF. This results in the highest power consumption. Highest single reading

Earlier in the review we mentioned that NVIDIA has completely revamped the voltage regulation circuitry of their design. Instead of a Volterra based solution, one from Analog is used. Apparently this change results in a considerably higher power consumption compared to the first iteration of the GTX 295. However, as we see on the following pages, fan noise is down and temperatures are very acceptable. So unless you are an extreme tree hugger the increased power consumption shouldn't concern you much.