NVIDIA GeForce GTX 465 Debut: EVGA, ZOTAC

Before bringing this article to a close, we'd like to cover a few final data points--namely power consumption and noise. Throughout all of our benchmarking and testing, we monitored how much power our test system was consuming using a power meter. Our goal was to give you all an idea as to how much power each configuration used while idling and while under a heavy workload. Please keep in mind that we were testing total system power consumption at the outlet here, not just the power being drawn by the graphics cards alone.

Total System Power Consumption
Tested at the Outlet

 

The GeForce GTX 465 cards consumed about the same amount of power as the much faster Radeon HD 5870 while under load, but about 20 more watts at idle (sitting at the Windows desktop). In comparison to the GeForce GTX 480, however, the 465s used much less power under load. As you may expect, due to their lower power cosumption, the GeForce GTX 465 doesn't generate quite as much heat and it runs much quiter than the 480 too. In fact, throughout our entire suite of benchmarks, we never heard the fan on the GTX 465s spin up to the point where they were louder than the stock Intel CPU cooler in our test rig.


Marco Chiappetta

Marco Chiappetta

Marco's interest in computing and technology dates all the way back to his early childhood. Even before being exposed to the Commodore P.E.T. and later the Commodore 64 in the early ‘80s, he was interested in electricity and electronics, and he still has the modded AFX cars and shop-worn soldering irons to prove it. Once he got his hands on his own Commodore 64, however, computing became Marco's passion. Throughout his academic and professional lives, Marco has worked with virtually every major platform from the TRS-80 and Amiga, to today's high end, multi-core servers. Over the years, he has worked in many fields related to technology and computing, including system design, assembly and sales, professional quality assurance testing, and technical writing. In addition to being the Managing Editor here at HotHardware for close to 15 years, Marco is also a freelance writer whose work has been published in a number of PC and technology related print publications and he is a regular fixture on HotHardware’s own Two and a Half Geeks webcast. - Contact: marco(at)hothardware(dot)com

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