ATI or nVidia concerning heat

[KuJaX]

I am concerned about heat produced by a card, primarily because I already have too many running systems in this room and don't want to ice the entire house down with the air conditioner just to make the computer room comfortable.

I am going to be buying a video card to game with. Again, I am primarily concerned with how much heat comes from the card as well as how much electricity it takes.... more so than performance.

I am looking between the Sapphire 3870 $110 after rebate, the Sapphire 4850 $150 after rebate or on the nVidia side a XFX 9800 GT $110 after rebate or the EVGA 9800 GTX $170

So with primary use of the computer NOT gaming, and wanting to use as little electricity as possible while keeping heat minimal, what would be the best choice?

Obviously the 4850 will take more electricity and have more heat than the 3870, but is it noticeable? Can someone comment on the 4850 compared to 9800 GTX for what I am looking to achieve?

Only games played are TF2 and CSS. This rig will have a AMD X2 5000+ on M2N-SLI Deluxe on XP Pro. So will it even matter if I have a 4850 over a 3870 in terms of not taking advantage of PCI Express 2.0 and Direct X 10?

 

[Kaldskryke]

...concerned with how much heat comes from the card as well as how much electricity it takes

Wish I could contribute more meaningfully, but I'd like to point out that for these video cards heat generation is essentially equivalent to power consumption.

I could be wrong here, but I'm pretty sure RV770 is the king of performance/watt right now, so the HD4850 is a pretty good bet. Keep in mind that you can underclock the card to reduce power consumption as well. If you're going to be [H] you'll have to learn how to undervolt the thing too

Personally, instead of sacrificing performance to reduce heat output, I'd rather have good performance and be forced to disrobe.

Obviously the 4850 will take more electricity and have more heat than the 3870, but is it noticeable?

What makes you think this? HD4850 isn't just a HD3870 with higher clockspeed. The optical shrink and the improved architecture go along way to reducing heat issues. If you underclock a HD4850 to a similar performance level as a HD3870 is should consume much less power.

Only games played are TF2 and CSS. This rig will have a AMD X2 5000+ on M2N-SLI Deluxe on XP Pro. So will it even matter if I have a 4850 over a 3870 in terms of not taking advantage of PCI Express 2.0 and Direct X 10?

For these games you perhaps don't need the full power of a HD4850, but that depends on your resolution and what level of AA you want. Again, if you feel like you have more power than you need you can always underclock and save some power.

 

[Valset]

I am concerned about heat produced by a card, primarily because I already have too many running systems in this room and don't want to ice the entire house down with the air conditioner just to make the computer room comfortable.

I am going to be buying a video card to game with. Again, I am primarily concerned with how much heat comes from the card as well as how much electricity it takes.... more so than performance.

I am looking between the Sapphire 3870 $110 after rebate, the Sapphire 4850 $150 after rebate or on the nVidia side a XFX 9800 GT $110 after rebate or the EVGA 9800 GTX $170

So with primary use of the computer NOT gaming, and wanting to use as little electricity as possible while keeping heat minimal, what would be the best choice?

Obviously the 4850 will take more electricity and have more heat than the 3870, but is it noticeable? Can someone comment on the 4850 compared to 9800 GTX for what I am looking to achieve?

Only games played are TF2 and CSS. This rig will have a AMD X2 5000+ on M2N-SLI Deluxe on XP Pro. So will it even matter if I have a 4850 over a 3870 in terms of not taking advantage of PCI Express 2.0 and Direct X 10?

4850. I think a 3870 may actually take more power. but there are lot of threads lately, I don't think people realize how easy it is to vent the room or the computer itself. A cell vent can take care of the room, you can actually use a drier hose to vent the computer outside. ether of these solutions will pay for themselves in your electricity bills. remember that cooling your room from the 350 watts dumped into it takes a lot of power as well.

 

[tvdang7]

my 4850 puts out alot of heat.

 

[KuJaX]

4850. I think a 3870 may actually take more power. but there are lot of threads lately, I don't think people realize how easy it is to vent the room or the computer itself. A cell vent can take care of the room, you can actually use a drier hose to vent the computer outside. ether of these solutions will pay for themselves in your electricity bills. remember that cooling your room from the 350 watts dumped into it takes a lot of power as well.

"cell vent" I assume you mean a ceiling vent?

The dryer house method sounds interesting, although that would require some customization of the computer itself as well as either an open window or permanently going through a wall/ceiling.

 

[JimmiG]

Obviously the 4850 will take more electricity and have more heat than the 3870, but is it noticeable? Can someone comment on the 4850 compared to 9800 GTX for what I am looking to achieve?

The running cost only change by a a tiny amount between a high-end card and a low-end one. I mean if you have an apartment, you probably use several hundred kilowatt-hours a month and if you own a house, you use thousands of kWh's a month. So whether card A uses 20 watts more than card B doesn't matter at all in the end.

This Anandtech review (http://www.anandtech.com/video/showdoc.aspx?i=3341&p=22) among others, includes power draw figures.

At idle, you'll use an extra 17W of power with a 4850 over the 3870 and 3W over the 8800GT (which is probably similar to the 9800GT in terms of power draw).

At load, 4850 uses an extra 15W over the 3870 and 26W more than the 8800GT.

So even if you run games 24/7 for a month, you can save about 17.5kWh at most by going with the 9800GT (if I remember my maths from school, that is.. correct me if I'm wrong). How much would you pay for 17.5kWh where you live? If you really can't afford it, change one single light bulb in the house from 60W to a 15W energy saving bulb

The only disadvantage with the 4850 is that the stock cooler doesn't exhaust the hot air from the case. However I've found two 2000RPM 80mm fans plus the PSU's 120mm fan to be more than enough for pushing the hot air out of the case.

 

[defaultluser]

The most efficient card on the market in your price range is the 9600GT. It idles well, and uses less power at full load than the 3870. It also performs as-well in most games.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/gainward-bliss9600gt-512gs_7.html#sect0

Performance is entirely outclassed by the 4850, but if power consumption is a concern, perhaps the 9600GT is enough for you.

If you are going to buy anything more capable, you might as well just get the 4850.

 

[nösferatu]

if you can't stand the heat of 4850, then i agree 9600GT is for you, also i think 9800GT still runs cooler than 4850 though.

 

[Valset]

"cell vent" I assume you mean a ceiling vent?

The dryer house method sounds interesting, although that would require some customization of the computer itself as well as either an open window or permanently going through a wall/ceiling.

yes that was a typo. a simple ceiling vent, like the ones in bathroom (you can find quitter models.

The drier hose mod is awesome and simple if not the most comely. if you have a single exhaust fan it is all too easy. you can actually screw through one of the plastic wall mounts for the hose and just duct it out (make sure you have a good fan or use two). If you want your PSU vented you will have to spice a little. and if you want quite then get an insulated hose. Or you can just put a box over the back part of your computer and use a fan in the duct. must love simplicity.

 

[defaultluser]

if you can't stand the heat of 4850, then i agree 9600GT is for you, also i think 9800GT still runs cooler than 4850 though.

Not really. See the link above (9800GT = 8800GT, until the 55nm models trickle in). In most games where the 8800GT wins over the 9600GT, the margin is less than %20. In many games, the performance is equal, and in some games the 9600GT is actually FASTER!

When you consider that the 8800GT saps %33 more power than the 9600GT, this is a wasteful increase. If you're going to drain more power than with a 9600GT, unfortunately, you only have one efficient choice: the 4850.

See here: the 4850 delivers around %50-100 better performance than 9600GT, depending on the game. That's well-worth consuming %80 more power than the 9600GT at load.

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/ati-radeon-hd4800-games_4.html

The 4850 is not as efficient as the 9600GT, but it is most certainly the second-most efficient card in your price range.

EDIT:

The 55nm 9800GT is finally available here, but it is sadly overpriced:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16814130384

Unfortunately, we also have no idea what kind of power savings we'll see. 65->55nm is only a half shrink, so I don't expect we'll see more than %20 power reduction...but I'd like to see a review to confirm this

 

[nösferatu]

sorry, maybe you're right, but i don't trust canned benchmark or time-demo.
still i agree that 9600GT will be the most efficient though.

 

[unleashed]

I am concerned about heat produced by a card....I am going to be buying a video card to game with.

And I'm going to be buying a drag racer.......but am very concerned about the global warming.
The Geo Metro should be a perfect choice....

 

[The_Dark_Abyss]

I would definitely go for the 4850 vs. the 9800GT or the 9800GTX. The 4850 may use more power than the 9800GT but uses less power at idle and at load compared to the 9800GTX (while giving you more performance).

One other thing to consider is that the 9800GTX especially is a very large/long card (as large as the GTX 200 series in fact) and while it is a two-slot cooler, it doesn't dump the heat outside of the case as well as you would think (I noticed that increasing the fan speed on it would always increase my CPU temp by several degrees). So ergonomically speaking it would also be a better idea to get the 4850.

 

[PlzFixMyComputer]

The heat you sense doesn't always correlate with power usage. The chip that draws the same power would put out different amounts of heat whether it has a dual slot cooler or single slot cooler, which would obviously affect the temps.

You could also ramp up the fan speeds and it would cool off a bit.

4870's and 4850's are smoking hot to the touch. You can easily burn yourself on an RV770 board.