Introducing the Radeon X1650 XT: A New Mainstream GPU from ATI
by Josh Venning on October 30, 2006 6:00 AM EST- Posted in
- GPUs
Power
Power consumption is always an important factor when looking at how a graphics card performs, and we did some tests here to determine how the X1650 XT compares to a few other key cards currently on the market. Even though these cards we tested are reference cards, we can still get a general idea of how much power they will use compared to one another. Of course, any card's power consumption has potential to increase or decrease depending on the different tweaks the individual vendors will make to them before shipping them out.
For these tests we start with the total power draw of the system with each of the cards installed while idle (no programs running). We chose these five cards because they include a general range of performance relative to the X1650 XT. We can see here that the X1950 Pro and X1650 XT are a little more power hungry than the rest of the cards at idle.
Next we look at the total power draw of the system while running some stress tests on each of the GPUs. The stress test we use is a few of the demos from 3dMark06, which are particularly graphics intensive. We see by this graph that the X1950 Pro is the most power hungry of these cards, which is to be expected given its level of performance. We also see that the X1650 XT has a more substantial power draw than any of the others, and in particular the 7600 GT, which shows to be the least power hungry of the five. The fact that the 7600 GT consumes less power than the X1650 XT is important, as these two cards are direct performance competitors. But again, keep in mind that these are reference cards and there will be some variation between power levels of the different vendor cards using these chipsets.
One nice thing about the X1650 XT is that it doesn't require an external power connection. This makes it a good choice for those with limited connections on their power supplies. However, the 7600 GT also doesn't need an external power connection, so our data might persuade those who are very concerned about power consumption to look into this card instead of the X1650 XT. 6W more power at idle and 24W more power at load (relative to the 7600 GT) shows that NVIDIA still holds a clear advantage when it comes to power requirements. However, the X1650 XT isn't a very power hungry card, so most users won't need to worry about its consumption. Worst case, 24W extra power use running 24/7 over the course of the year would still only amount to around $20. In the mobile market, however, ATI hardware still looks set to be at a disadvantage, as even a couple watts can be significant when you're looking at battery life.
Power consumption is always an important factor when looking at how a graphics card performs, and we did some tests here to determine how the X1650 XT compares to a few other key cards currently on the market. Even though these cards we tested are reference cards, we can still get a general idea of how much power they will use compared to one another. Of course, any card's power consumption has potential to increase or decrease depending on the different tweaks the individual vendors will make to them before shipping them out.
For these tests we start with the total power draw of the system with each of the cards installed while idle (no programs running). We chose these five cards because they include a general range of performance relative to the X1650 XT. We can see here that the X1950 Pro and X1650 XT are a little more power hungry than the rest of the cards at idle.
Next we look at the total power draw of the system while running some stress tests on each of the GPUs. The stress test we use is a few of the demos from 3dMark06, which are particularly graphics intensive. We see by this graph that the X1950 Pro is the most power hungry of these cards, which is to be expected given its level of performance. We also see that the X1650 XT has a more substantial power draw than any of the others, and in particular the 7600 GT, which shows to be the least power hungry of the five. The fact that the 7600 GT consumes less power than the X1650 XT is important, as these two cards are direct performance competitors. But again, keep in mind that these are reference cards and there will be some variation between power levels of the different vendor cards using these chipsets.
One nice thing about the X1650 XT is that it doesn't require an external power connection. This makes it a good choice for those with limited connections on their power supplies. However, the 7600 GT also doesn't need an external power connection, so our data might persuade those who are very concerned about power consumption to look into this card instead of the X1650 XT. 6W more power at idle and 24W more power at load (relative to the 7600 GT) shows that NVIDIA still holds a clear advantage when it comes to power requirements. However, the X1650 XT isn't a very power hungry card, so most users won't need to worry about its consumption. Worst case, 24W extra power use running 24/7 over the course of the year would still only amount to around $20. In the mobile market, however, ATI hardware still looks set to be at a disadvantage, as even a couple watts can be significant when you're looking at battery life.
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LuxFestinus - Monday, October 30, 2006 - link
One nice thing about the X1650 XT is that is doesn't require an external power connection. The second "is" should be "it" please. Thank you.Josh Venning - Monday, October 30, 2006 - link
It's been fixed. Thankstrabpukcip - Monday, October 30, 2006 - link
I think they meant the 7600GT doesn't require an external power connector.
I sure remember hooking up the power connector for my little brother's 7900GS less than five metres from me, being derived from a crippled 7900GT and all.
And as for you you American dotted underline spellchecker. I spell it metres NOT meters where I come from ;). (It even underlined "spellchecker", the irony).
bldckstark - Monday, October 30, 2006 - link
What colour was the underline?DerekWilson - Monday, October 30, 2006 - link
lolJarredWalton - Monday, October 30, 2006 - link
Back to the original comment, this has been corrected. Unless Josh knows something I don't, all of the 7900 GS cards I can find require a PCIe power connector. 7600 GT does not, however. Odd, considering power draws are about the same.BigLan - Monday, October 30, 2006 - link
What's the avivo performance of the x1650xt? Can it handle acceleration of 1080i/p stuff, or is it limited to 720p like it's predecessor? If it can only do 720p it's taking a huge hit against the 7600gt which has full purevideo compatibility (and is the current darling of the htpc crowd.)Also, I haven't heard anything about gpu accelerated transcoding in a while. Any chance of getting an anandtech article about it using non-beta versions?
blckgrffn - Monday, October 30, 2006 - link
An incomplete specifications table, assertions like "it has twice the pixel pipelines, 12 to 24 which will fix the performance issues" when really the x16xx family was plagued by a fill rate comparable to a 9600XT.Don't take this personal Josh - but Anandtech is supposed to have the definitive review, not simply an adequate one.
Nat
DerekWilson - Monday, October 30, 2006 - link
We had trouble tracking down the # of vertex and color/z pipes -- we didn't want to comment on any fill rate differences until we could confirm our suspicions -- raster pipes have doubled, and this definitely helps at higher resolutions and with AA or stencil shadows, etc...But doubling the pixel pipes does allow them to get a big boost in performance without upping the clock speed in more modern games (like oblivion) where fill rate wasnt as large an issue.
Sorry for the gap in the article -- it has been updated and a paragraph has been added after our charts to explain the impact of raster pipes. In the future, we'll be sure to get ahold of the data we need in a more timely fashion.
Derek Wilson
blckgrffn - Tuesday, October 31, 2006 - link
Thanks!Anandtech is my homepage, and will continue to be for some time. Really, I think we all just want to see this site be the best that it can be.
Nat