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NVIDIA to become the "green team" with launch of GeForce 9600 GT Green Edition

by Parm Mann on 21 January 2009, 12:58

Tags: GeForce 9600 GT Green Edition, NVIDIA (NASDAQ:NVDA)

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NVIDIA appears to be taking its "green team" name seriously, as it's preparing to launch a GeForce 9600 GT Green Edition.

The latest in the long line of many supposedly eco-friendly tech products is an underclocked GeForce 9600 GT that'll consume less than 60W of power and requires no external power connector. With its GPU clocked at 600MHz - that's 50MHz less than a reference GeForce 9600 GT - the Green Edition should find itself generating far less heat, making it useful for a low-power HTPC.

Although yet to be officially confirmed by NVIDIA itself, the card's specifications are thought to be as follows:

Product
GeForce 9600 GT
GeForce 9600 GT Green Edition
GPU clock
650MHz
600MHz
Shader clock
1,625MHz
1,500MHz
Memory clock
900MHz
900MHz
Voltage
1.1V
1.0V
External power connector
Yes (6-pin)
No
Peak TDP
95W
60W

A near 37 per-cent decrease in the card's claimed peak TDP could make it a very popular mid-range choice, and a decent alternative to Sapphire's impressive Radeon HD 4670.

There's no word yet on pricing, and we've no images of partner cards, but we'd love to see it in all-out NVIDIA green:

Minus the reference cooler, mind you, this one's begging to be passively cooled.

HEXUS Forums :: 9 Comments

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Posted by Webby - Wed 21 Jan 2009 13:34
Let me guess this will cost more than a standard 9600GT as well because everything green costs more!
Posted by scaryjim - Wed 21 Jan 2009 13:40
Webby
Let me guess this will cost more than a standard 9600GT as well because everything green costs more!
Not if it's seriously meant to compete with the 4670! The stock 9600GT isn't *much* faster than a 4670 anyway, and is currently around 30% more expensive. Reducing the clocks is likely to push performance down to around the same as a 4670, and the power draw is now the same as a 4670, so if it costs more than a 4670 it's not really going to compete with it!

This is just begging for a green edition of the Radeon 4650, with (further) reduced core clocks, DDR3 and a TDP of around 45W. That would be very amusing indeed ;)
Posted by Webby - Wed 21 Jan 2009 14:51
A 9600GT is significantly faster than a 4670 ~20% across all resolutions (with the gap getting bigger at higher resolutions and less at the lower) So it probably deserves its price over the 4670 with the reduced clocks it may fall into the same performance bracket if it does then pricing would be expected to be similar only problem is that the 9600GSO already fills that space.

So the only possible reason for this card is to make Nvidia look green… it really is a waste of space the only time it will be saving energy is when it is loaded (idle power draw is likely unchanged) at which point you want as much performance as you can get so why not just buy the faster card and if your feeling Green down-clock it yourself.
Posted by scaryjim - Wed 21 Jan 2009 15:20
Webby
A 9600GT is significantly faster than a 4670 ~20% across all resolutions (with the gap getting bigger at higher resolutions and less at the lower) … with the reduced clocks it may fall into the same performance bracket if it does then pricing would be expected to be similar only problem is that the 9600GSO already fills that space.
I make it 15% at 1280*1024, and as low as 6% in ATI-loving games at that res, which means a 14% drop in clocks would almost certainly dip it into 4670 territory.
Webby
So the only possible reason for this card is to make Nvidia look green… it really is a waste of space the only time it will be saving energy is when it is loaded (idle power draw is likely unchanged) at which point you want as much performance as you can get so why not just buy the faster card and if your feeling Green down-clock it yourself.
Indeed - or, if you're more concerned about power-saving than performance, surely you'd go for a 780G integrated system, or a 4350 discreet card, rather than a slightly declocked mid-range card?
Posted by Methanoid - Wed 21 Jan 2009 20:53
For a complete picture.. we need to know the IDLE power consumption of the 4670 (7W I believe) and the new Nvidia effort…

I'd hazard a guess its something like 20W… so will look pretty crappy…

ATI seem to have Nvidia well and truly whupped on power efficiency.

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