Galaxy’s GTX 480 SuperOverclock – The World’s fastest single GPU video card!

Power Usage

Power usage is important for many people as a very hot running GPU is not only not “green”, it throws warm air into your room that your air conditioner must work extra hard to compensate for. Of course, for those of us like this editor who lives where it is cooler than warmer, a small space-heater in ones PC is a plus. We have seen that the GTX 480’s TDP specification, which is 250W, is far more than the HD 5870’s 188W TDP – and the GTX 480 requires 6-pin+8-pin PCIe connectors as shown below in the reference and also in Galaxy’s GTX 480 SOC version.

As we contrast the GTX 480 with the HD 5870, only 6-pin+6-pin PCIe connectors are required for the Radeon. You will also note that the reference Diamond HD 5870 is physically longer than the reference GeForce 480 and some cutting modification had to be made to the Cooler Master Gladiator 600 to accomodate it. This time, we are using our larger over-sized mid-tower Thermaltake Element G case which does accommodate our 10.5 inch HD 5870, but the Galaxy GTX 480 SOC is a few mm longer than the reference Diamond HD 5870.

The Galaxy GTX 480 SOC is a long card.  We had to remove our hard drive cage to fit it in our Thermaltake Element G case.

The reference GTX 480’s performance does come at a power cost; compare the system total power draw at the wall with the with the HD 5870 first – at idle and then at maximum GPU usage when running FurMark with the exact same system back in April.

Now the total system power draw from the wall with the same PC, but with the GTX 480 inside instead of the HD 5870. First, we see the idle state and then with the GTX GPU maxed out running FurMark.

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Of course, the second image is of our overclocked GTX 480. We see that we would be pulling well over 250W from the wall; today we pulled almost 50 watts more than the reference GTX 480 version with the same PC as we saw 550W with the overclocked Galaxy GTX 480 SOC.

FurMark will stress a GPU’s stability and give the maximum thermals that one would never see in-game. You can consider FurMark’s torture tests, “worst case” scenarios for power and heat. Here is a screen shot of FurMark running at 2560×1600 with the Reference GTX 480:

The reference GTX 480 is very hot at 97 C.  Now compare the temperatures with the overclocked Galaxy GTX 480 SOC at its peak of only 70C running Furmark; but first notice that the overclocked Galaxy GTX 480 SOC will pull about fifty more watts than the reference GTX 480, requiring that you have a very stable PSU:

Now let’s compare the reference GTX 480 at 97 C with the Galaxy GTX SOC running the same Furmark hot-as-hell test at 70C, or 27C cooler with the Galaxy’s quiet Arctic Cooler:

The reference GTX 480 definitely runs toasty at 97C as “worst case” but the reference cooling solution appears up to the task with plenty of noise. In cold contrast, the Galaxy GTX 480 SOC has tamed the thermals quietly by hitting only 70 C in Furmark and it never seems to leave the 50s C during actual gaming!!  That is 97C for a reference GTX 480 vs. 70C for the Galaxy GTX 450 SOC – all the while, the Galaxy’s overclocked GPU is putting out 50 more watts!