Low power consumption GPU ideas?

[porina]

What might be a reasonable performing GPU that doesn't need additional PCIe power connectors? Bonus points if it is older/cheaper. Even better, if it as standard doesn't need a fan as unlikely as that might be. For reference, I have an R7 260X and that would be an acceptable ball park performance, but that does need the extra power connector.

 

For background, I have an idea for a gaming capable novelty build to go in a low height enclosure. I think the best way to describe it will be to imagine it will be like a 1U server thickness, but it isn't actually 1U. It will be severely space constrained and it might take some effort to control heat production, hence low power consumption is a requirement. How good are APUs? I should look that up...

[Trevor87]

It might worth looking at Apu  but then you will have to but little more ram in for the memory for the APU. 

[PlayStation 2]

Maybe a low profile 750 Ti?

[porina]

Just now, Trevor87 said:

It might worth looking at Apu  but then you will have to but little more ram in for the memory for the APU. 

Having looked further, I don't think this is viable. Even top end APUs I'd estimate would be below half the performance of a 260X. And I wouldn't want to buy a top end one anyway.

Just now, Dan Castellaneta said:

Maybe a low profile 750 Ti?

*goes look up*

[porina]

750Ti seems best bet so far as a balance between power and performance, with the limitation on power. Is there any similar AMD GPU I should also look at?

[Stefan1024]

18 minutes ago, porina said:

750Ti seems best bet so far as a balance between power and performance, with the limitation on power. Is there any similar AMD GPU I should also look at?

At the moment: 750Ti with a big CPU heatsink

In two month:Polaris! They are made with 16/14 nm and are mid- and low range. So there should be at least one part with very low power consuption but better performance than the 750Ti.

[porina]

2 minutes ago, Stefan1024 said:

In two month:Polaris! They are made with 16/14 nm and are mid- and low range. So there should be at least one part with very low power consuption but better performance than the 750Ti.

Good point, how could I forget... now, we don't really know how low they go as I'd suspect they'll let older generation flush out and concentrate more on higher end at first. Still, I don't need to do this project right away so I can afford to wait and see.

[porina]

To close on this, I ended up seeing a refurbished 750Ti at a good price and got it. Just running some tests on it now and... it doesn't seem that powerful but it doesn't take that much power either. The card itself is a PNY made one with a cooler resembling an even lower profile version of the intel stock CPU cooler. Under worst load so far (firestrike), temps are maxing at 57C at 110% TDP! Thermally this is even better than expectations. The test system I'm running it in for now only has an E6600 in it so that might be holding back some of its potential, but tomorrow I might move it into the eventual i3 system it will be living in and see if that helps much. 

[jwakeford]

1 hour ago, porina said:

To close on this, I ended up seeing a refurbished 750Ti at a good price and got it. Just running some tests on it now and... it doesn't seem that powerful but it doesn't take that much power either. The card itself is a PNY made one with a cooler resembling an even lower profile version of the intel stock CPU cooler. Under worst load so far (firestrike), temps are maxing at 57C at 110% TDP! Thermally this is even better than expectations. The test system I'm running it in for now only has an E6600 in it so that might be holding back some of its potential, but tomorrow I might move it into the eventual i3 system it will be living in and see if that helps much. 

AMD nano Fury is an option, otherwise, wait for Polaris, that would be my best bet. 

[porina]

7 hours ago, jwakeford said:

AMD nano Fury is an option, otherwise, wait for Polaris, that would be my best bet. 

This is a specific low power build. The Fury nano (175W) was never an option as it is far too power thirsty for the application, to which I have stated a hard requirement the GPU must not need additional power other than the PCIe slot (75W max). The PSU I have (150W) wouldn't even run it by itself!

 

Maybe Polaris/Pascal will give more options in future, but right now the 750Ti will be sufficient to get going with.

[don_svetlio]

On 4/12/2016 at 1:57 AM, porina said:

What might be a reasonable performing GPU that doesn't need additional PCIe power connectors? Bonus points if it is older/cheaper. Even better, if it as standard doesn't need a fan as unlikely as that might be. For reference, I have an R7 260X and that would be an acceptable ball park performance, but that does need the extra power connector.

 

For background, I have an idea for a gaming capable novelty build to go in a low height enclosure. I think the best way to describe it will be to imagine it will be like a 1U server thickness, but it isn't actually 1U. It will be severely space constrained and it might take some effort to control heat production, hence low power consumption is a requirement. How good are APUs? I should look that up...

950 low-power edition

[don_svetlio]

43 minutes ago, porina said:

This is a specific low power build. The Fury nano (175W) was never an option as it is far too power thirsty for the application, to which I have stated a hard requirement the GPU must not need additional power other than the PCIe slot (75W max). The PSU I have (150W) wouldn't even run it by itself!

 

Maybe Polaris/Pascal will give more options in future, but right now the 750Ti will be sufficient to get going with.

The system itself needs 100W so your out of luck. You need at LEAST a 200W PSU to properly power such a rig

[porina]

1 minute ago, don_svetlio said:

The system itself needs 100W so your out of luck. You need at LEAST a 200W PSU to properly power such a rig

Acknowledged although I would question the exact figure. I knew from the start that the PSU I'm using will be pushed close to its limit if I run everything under full load at the same time.

 

The power budget is estimated at:

CPU 35W TDP

750Ti reference is 60W TDP. I had seen mine report usage up to 110% TDP so 66W is still within the 75W limit of PCIe 16x interface.

SSD is probably less than 2.5W (I know it runs off USB no problem)

Ram (2x4GB DDR3 1600) and mobo is a guess.

 

I will be testing it before using it seriously, and if really necessary I can look to higher power PSUs but I'm limited in space. I will be using a PicoPSU rated at 160W, but I'm only feeding it from a 150W 12V brick. The PicoPSU passes through the 12V rail directly which should cover the majority of the CPU and GPU requirement, although this is a bit of a risk area as it is rated for 8A continuous on 12V rail, which equates to 96W, or about equal to 100% loading the CPU and GPU at the same time. It also generates 3.3V/5V rails as needed but they shouldn't be significant drains on modern systems. It will be close to the limit, and if too close I will have to find a plan B but it will be enough for me to test with. I might even underclock the GPU slightly to help.

 

Oh, the low power 950s were interesting apart from their cost. They should be better performing than a 750ti, but they would also be double the cost.

[don_svetlio]

29 minutes ago, porina said:

Acknowledged although I would question the exact figure. I knew from the start that the PSU I'm using will be pushed close to its limit if I run everything under full load at the same time.

 

The power budget is estimated at:

CPU 35W TDP

750Ti reference is 60W TDP. I had seen mine report usage up to 110% TDP so 66W is still within the 75W limit of PCIe 16x interface.

SSD is probably less than 2.5W (I know it runs off USB no problem)

Ram (2x4GB DDR3 1600) and mobo is a guess.

 

I will be testing it before using it seriously, and if really necessary I can look to higher power PSUs but I'm limited in space. I will be using a PicoPSU rated at 160W, but I'm only feeding it from a 150W 12V brick. The PicoPSU passes through the 12V rail directly which should cover the majority of the CPU and GPU requirement, although this is a bit of a risk area as it is rated for 8A continuous on 12V rail, which equates to 96W, or about equal to 100% loading the CPU and GPU at the same time. It also generates 3.3V/5V rails as needed but they shouldn't be significant drains on modern systems. It will be close to the limit, and if too close I will have to find a plan B but it will be enough for me to test with. I might even underclock the GPU slightly to help.

 

Oh, the low power 950s were interesting apart from their cost. They should be better performing than a 750ti, but they would also be double the cost.

Most 750 Tis should use 70W or more due to GPU Boost 2.0 auto OCing them. Keep that in mind. As for the CPU, where did you find a 35W one? Most intel CPUs aside from the crappy Pentiums are 67+

[Stefan1024]

40 minutes ago, don_svetlio said:

Most 750 Tis should use 70W or more due to GPU Boost 2.0 auto OCing them. Keep that in mind. As for the CPU, where did you find a 35W one? Most intel CPUs aside from the crappy Pentiums are 67+

All CPUs with the T suffix are around 35-45 watts. But it's not easy to finde them with a proper socket as most of them are BGA and to be soldered.

[don_svetlio]

2 minutes ago, Stefan1024 said:

All CPUs with the T suffix are around 35-45 watts. But it's not easy to finde them with a proper socket as most of them are BGA and to be soldered.

Ah, explains why I forgot about them

[porina]

2 hours ago, don_svetlio said:

Most 750 Tis should use 70W or more due to GPU Boost 2.0 auto OCing them. Keep that in mind. As for the CPU, where did you find a 35W one? Most intel CPUs aside from the crappy Pentiums are 67+

Yup, the GPU overclock is something I am aware of and may need to tame that to help moderate power draw. Still the PCIe slot power will limit it to 75W in any case. I hadn't had much luck with undreclocking GPUs in the past.

 

I've already got i3-4150T standard desktop socket CPU in MSI H81M-P33 tiny mobo (micro-ATX but not far off Mini-itx).