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Diamond Viper Radeon HD 2900XT 1GB Videocard Review
Diamond Viper Radeon HD 2900XT 1GB Videocard Review - PCSTATS
The ATI Radeon HD 2900XT VPU core runs at 743 MHz while the 1GB of GDDR4 memory hums along at a very sweet 2 GHz! In pairs, the Diamond Viper Radeon HD 2900XT is ATI Crossfire compatible on supporting motherboards.
 89% Rating:   
Filed under: Video Cards Published:  Author: 
External Mfg. Website: Diamond Aug 22 2007   C. Sun  
Home > Reviews > Video Cards > Diamond Radeon HD 2900XT 1GB

Videocard Power Consumption Measurements

While Intel and AMD have moved aggressively towards reducing the amount of power processors consume, nVIDIA and AMD have largely neglected the concerns os energy efficiency. High end videocards can often draw more power than a CPU in a computer. With the AMD R600 core built on TSMC's 80nm technology, you know this GPU will use up a lot of power.

To get an idea at how much power the Diamond Viper Radeon HD 2900XT 1GB consumes, consider this. The PCI Express x16 slot provides up to 75W power, and each additional six pin VGA power connector a further 75W. The new eight pin PCI Express power connector can deliver up to 225W of power. Yikes.

While we have no way of directly measuring how much power the Viper Radeon HD 2900XT draws, PCSTATS can measure total system power draw and compare that same basic installation to a couple different videocards. That will give you a rough idea of how much power the Radeon HD 2900XT is drawing under idle and loaded states.

For PCSTATS total system power draw tests, the PC will consist of the following hardware: AMD Athlon64 FX-62, Asus M2-CROSSHAIR motherboard (for nVIDIA videocards) and an ECS KA3 MVP Extreme motherboard (for the Diamond videocard), a reference Athlon64 FX-62 cooler, 2GB of Corsair Twin2X2048-6400C3 memory, a 74GB WD Raptor hard drive, an 8x Gigabyte DVD writer and a floppy drive. The power supply used here is the A-PFC compliant Seasonic S12-600W.

The videocards that will be tested against the Diamond Viper Radeon HD 2900XT 1GB come from both the nVIDIA and ATi camps. Representing nVIDIA are the MSI NX8800GTX-T2D768E-HD (GeForce 8800GTX), Foxconn FV-N88SMCD2-ONOC (GeForce 8800GTS 320MB), MSI NX7950GX2-T2D1GE (GeForce 7950GX2), a MSI NX7900GTX-T2D512E (GeForce 7900GTX) and a Gigabyte GV-NX76T256D-RH (GeForce 7600GT) videocard. Representing ATI/AMD are an Asus X1900XTX 2DHTV/512M/A (Radeon X1900 XTX) and an Asus EAX1950PRO/HTDP/256M/A (Radeon X1950 Pro) videocard.

PCSTATS Benchmark ReportVideocard Power Consumption on Total System Power Draw Tests
Idle: Watts* Ranking
MSI NX8800GTX-T2D768E-HD 196
Foxconn FV-N88SMCD2-ONOC 171
MSI NX7950GX2-T2D1GE 183
MSI NX7900GTX-T2D512E 165
Gigabyte GV-NX76T256D-RH 140
Asus EAX1900XTX 2DHTV/512M/A 160
Asus EAX1950PRO/HTDP/256M/A 150
Diamond Viper Radeon HD 2900XT 178
Diamond Viper Radeon HD 2900XT Overclocked 825/1132

185

Diamond Viper Radeon HD 2900XT CrossFire 195
Diamond Viper Radeon HD 2900XT CrossFire Overclocked 812/1123 206
Load: Watts* Ranking
MSI NX8800GTX-T2D768E-HD 345
Foxconn FV-N88SMCD2-ONOC 302
MSI NX7950GX2-T2D1GE 315
MSI NX7900GTX-T2D512E 277
Gigabyte GV-NX76T256D-RH 213
Asus EAX1900XTX 2DHTV/512M/A 333
Asus EAX1950PRO/HTDP/256M/A 252
Diamond Viper Radeon HD 2900XT 337
Diamond Viper Radeon HD 2900XT Overclocked 825/1132 346
Diamond Viper Radeon HD 2900XT CrossFire 549
Diamond Viper Radeon HD 2900XT CrossFire Overclocked 812/1123 573

[ *This figure represents total system power consumption in Watts, either with the system at idle, or the peak value recorded while running 3DMark06. ]

At idle, one Diamond Viper Radeon HD 2900XT videocard draws 178W, about 18W less than the MSI NX8800GTX-T2D768E-HD. Even when a single Radeon HD 2900XT is overclocked, it still draws less than one Geforce 8800GTX.

Energy consumption jumps a lot when the videocards are under gaming loads.

The MSI NX8800GTX-T2D768E-HD draws more power (345W) than a Diamond Viper Radeon HD 2900XT (337W). With one Diamond HD 2900XT overclocked, power consumption rises slightly to 346W. With two Radeon HD 2900XT's running in Crossfire, total system power consumption jumps considerably to 549W. Overclocking the Crossfire videocards bumps that figure up to an astounding 573W of power!

Wow, I never thought we would see power levels reach such levels... but there you have it, an overclocked Crossfire pair of Diamond Viper Radeon HD 2900XT's pushes total system power draw to 573W! Remember, Diamond recommend using a minimum 750W power supply with these videocards.

Overclocking is up next, but first PCSTATS has H.264 Blue Ray HD content playback tests...

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Contents of Article: Diamond Radeon HD 2900XT 1GB
 Pg 1.  Diamond Viper Radeon HD 2900XT 1GB Videocard Review
 Pg 2.  Massive Heatsink and Quiet Cooling System?
 Pg 3.  ATI/AMD CrossFire Redone
 Pg 4.  The AMD Radeon HD 2900XT Core
 Pg 5.  — Videocard Power Consumption Measurements
 Pg 6.  High Definition Playback Tests with AVIVO
 Pg 7.  Overclocking the Radeon HD 2900XT Videocard
 Pg 8.  Videocard Benchmarks: 3DMark05, 3DMark06
 Pg 9.  Videocard Benchmarks: FarCry
 Pg 10.  Videocard Benchmarks: Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory
 Pg 11.  Videocard Benchmarks: Doom 3
 Pg 12.  Videocard Benchmarks: Quake 4
 Pg 13.  Videocard Benchmarks: FEAR
 Pg 14.  DX10 Videocard Benchmarks: Call of Juarez, Lost Planet
 Pg 15.  PCSTATS Maximum Videocard Overclocking Chart & Conclusions
 Pg 16.  Radeon HD 2900XT To Give nVidia a Real Challenge

 
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