Blogs Battle of the GPUs: Is power efficiency the new must-have?

The GPU power of the 970 is 145W not 165W, that'd be the 980. So in actual fact the Asus is the only one hitting 110%.

I don't own a 970/980, so perhaps you could answer something, on the 970 was the default TDP limit set to 100% or above? The way I assumed it worked was that the card was defaulted to 100% TDP including it's boost clock, and that the TDP limit could be raised further by the user to enable higher overclocking.

It just odd to me that they'd design a GPU to hit 145W and then it's boost break that limit. If you manually told it to surpass that amount, that's fine, but not otherwise imo.

 

I wouldn't have upgraded from a 780, 780Ti or Titan to the 980, but the moment I needed to replace my GPU the 980 ticked all my boxes.

Powerful, cool running, quiet and efficient - all essentials for gaming in a shoebox-sized case.

I think Nvidia/AMD should offer power efficient cards like Maxwell and totally ridiculous, brute force designs. That way they would cater to the crazy fools who want to game on three 8K screens whatever the cost, and us "normal" folks who want a powerful yet subtle system.

 

Is power efficiency the new must have? For me an average gamer, No, If I am running something full load 24/7 then I care about power, if I am playing your typical 20 hr game then I don’t give a monkeys, being able to drive my resolutions and frame rate including the graphical features I want are what matter.

Does Power efficiency matter for AMD and Nvidia, Yes, they want to branch out and push their architectures into new markets from handheld devices to servers where efficiency matters

 

i only care a bout power, unlimited power, don't care about consumption at all, but that's just me!

 

It's an interesting subject and I like others I don't think there is a yes or no answer.

99% of the time my main rig is turned on it's all about the FPS. When gaming I prefer to run 5760x1080 with everything cranked as high as it can go. When I built the system I installed 3x290x's (overclocked and watercooled).
Did I consider the power draw? Only when working out how big the power supply had to be.
Did I care about the heat / noise? - Only in that they run damn hot and loud; so a dedicated water cooling loop.
Did I care about the cost of running them - not in the slightest. I work damn hard and for the few hours a week I get to play, I want the full experience - efficiency goes out the window. When I eventually build my next gaming rig, the same principles will apply.

Now for my wife's PC, she wants something completely different. That machine was built with size (had to be small), heat (low) and noise (next to none) as the major factors. When building that one I most definately chose the parts with the best power effeciency / value for money.

Is it the new must have? To me, only if you must have it.

 

Will play mainly into the laptop and small form factor market I think going forward...still, it will always appear as not a huge leap forward if performance doesn't improve in-line with new releases of cards (as the recent 960 showed us given the reaction of people)...