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Energy Efficient Graphics Processors?
An anonymous reader asks: "The trends for graphics hardware these days seems to be to draw more power and create more heat to get faster processors and push more polygons. Yet in the CPU arena chips like the Via C3 and Epia, Transmeta Crusoe and Astro, Intel Pentium M, and IBM/Motorola PowerPC (G3-5) seem to favor more power per megahertz and cooler runnings without significant performance loss. Is this just because of the nature of the CPU versus GPU? I understand a GPU die is almost entirely reserved for calculation while the CPU is only 20% of so for calculation. Or are the graphics chip makers merely refusing to innovate and take routes that would reign in out of control energy consumption because of the race for more polygons? What kind of architectural changes could be implemented to alleviate graphics card power gluttony?"
Since when is the G5 efficient? It is as hot as any of the others. The G4 is a cool processor, but it runs at speeds like 1 GHz. Not that it doesn't make an awesome laptop (I've never had a complaint about mine) but it isn't exactly a model of efficiency.
No, but the GPU's he's talking about would fall into the same category as the P4's, which was my point..
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As gamer laptops get more popular, shouldn't we see new lower power GPUs with comparable muscle to the previous rev?
What's the power consumption like on a GPU that isn't doing much? Do they sleep like some CPUs can, or are they always going at full bore?
Theoretically, the more physical cooling you can give a chip, the more energy it can suck up (i.e. the more heat it can disipate). If anything, having less room for cooling should force energy efficiency (so that they don't have to disipate as much heat).
The point is there AREN'T GPU's in the same category as the CPU's listed. And some of those CPU's like the G4/G5 and the Pentium M perform on par with the Pentium 4.
You don't need to take it to an extreme. Fact of the matter is it WON'T fit in many cases. There's stuff above the AGP card depending on the motherboard and case layout. Not every case is ATX you know and even some ATX layouts don't have room for it. It's pretty obvious it would be stupid for Nvidia or anyone to design a graphics card that only 10% of the users could fit in their case. you can still fit the newer Geforce cards in cases so long as you don't have a million PCI cards and it's not a small form factor shuttle case.