Powercolor GO! Green HD5750 (passive)

They make noise, too.

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dhanson865
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Post by dhanson865 » Wed Mar 03, 2010 1:27 pm

jack_wolfskind wrote:
This would mean, that the lower power consumption is solely achieved by the more efficient voltage regulation circuits.
Hmm, do you know the efficiency of DC/DC Converters nowadays?
Typically 80..90%
80 -> quite bad!
90% -> really good!
My prior post with more text got lost with the server problems but I'll post again:

You talk about power circuitry but you say nothing about the fan. Just stop and think about how many watts are saved by dropping a 3000 RPM fan from the stock design then multiply by the inefficiency of the power regulation on the card then multiply by the inefficiency of the PSU (power supply).

Don't you think the marketing folks would use the over all gain in AC watts not the direct gain in DC watts at the card? And don't you think they should considering that is what it costs to run the card?

Or did you miss that they are comparing the go green version to the ATI reference card (not vs one of their own cards).
http://www.powercolor.com/eng/NewsInfo.asp?id=999 wrote:Power Color Go! Green HD5750 consumes 21% less power than reference board
Last edited by dhanson865 on Wed Mar 03, 2010 1:34 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Audiodude
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Post by Audiodude » Wed Mar 03, 2010 1:34 pm

@ jack_wolfskind: No, I don't have the necessary multimeter for that.

Also I think the values have to be that low to make sure that production variations don't lead to damaged mainboards...
And lower voltages would only be possible with GPU selection wich would come at a premium price.

Greetz Audiodude


Edit: O.K. i found the c't article (2/2010 p. 61) in wich the Powercolor SCS3 and the PC5 Premium where tested. They measure the real consumption of the card, and the values where:

SCS3 (passive with extra power):
idle: 15W
peak:86W (@ 80°C wich is more than 20°C more than my card)

PC5:
idle: 27W
peak:94

So what can we make of that...?

If my values are correct it would mean a 20W lower power consumption... compared to the other passive card (which has no fan!).
This is about what Powercolor claims.

I know that i shouldn't compare wall socket to card direct values but the tendency is clear.

Greetz Audiodude

Audiodude
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Post by Audiodude » Wed Mar 03, 2010 3:35 pm

What does your technical background tell you about the layout of the standard cards?

I would think that they

1. Usually go with the cheapest parts they can get away with

2. the vr circuits are layd out for overclocking because failiure to do so will earn them bad reviews (so they don't work in the optimum range)

3. this G!Gs vr circuit is probably optimzed for the measured values (so they are working in the optimum range)

4. My GPU runs much cooler due to water cooling wich might save some more

Greetz Audiodude

jack_in_the_box
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Post by jack_in_the_box » Thu Mar 04, 2010 1:19 am

Maybe we don't get too much into details here now, as not to make this thread too boring for others. If someone is interested in more technical details, maybe take it offline to PM?

Another question regarding the topic: do you have power consumptions values of your system before the g!g for comparison?
If so, we could likely estimate the g!g powerconsumption quite accurate.

Update:
I just saw you owned a 3850 before. Thats ~20W idle, ~80W load for the card. And you surely did some system power measurements as you've even been undervolting it :wink:

Fungi
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Post by Fungi » Thu Mar 04, 2010 8:59 am

I, for one, appreciate technical talk about components/circuitry. :)

Audiodude
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Post by Audiodude » Thu Mar 04, 2010 1:45 pm

jack_in_the_box wrote: I just saw you owned a 3850 before. Thats ~20W idle, ~80W load for the card. And you surely did some system power measurements as you've even been undervolting it :wink:
That's a problem, because I also swapped boards (before it was a ECS 770 Board) and Ram (there was only one stick left, now there are two).

Also my HD 3850 is way off the official specs. Completely different voltages and frequencies.

But as I wrote before, I measured the idle draw of a Minix 785 board with and without the card. The difference was around 15W. This measurement was unfortunately not very precise because of to many background processes.
But i doubt that the card draws more than 15W at idle (wich is the wattage of the standard passive powercolor card.

So even with inaccuracies i'm pretty sure that the card doesen't draw more than 65W at full load.

Greetz Audiodude
Last edited by Audiodude on Thu Mar 04, 2010 1:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

peerke
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Post by peerke » Thu Mar 04, 2010 1:48 pm

Fungi wrote:I, for one, appreciate technical talk about components/circuitry. :)
Me for two!! And I think we are not alone. Isn't that what makes this place great; talk about technical stuff by people who know a bit more than others?

jack_in_the_box
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Post by jack_in_the_box » Thu Mar 04, 2010 2:57 pm

Audiodude wrote:That's a problem, because I also swapped boards (before it was a ECS 770 Board) and Ram (there was only one stick left, now there are two).
So either we're patient and wait for a review, or we keep on guessing :twisted:

What puzzles me is the following:
ECS 770
Idle: 75W
Furmark: 150W
3D Mark 06: 135W (Canyonflight)
Based on your 80+ PSU, 15W idle, I'd calculate 70..75W furmark!
MSI 770T-C45
idle consumption is ca. 83W.
Furmark ... rises to 134W
Now your idle value is higher, however the furmark value is lower?
Given you didn't change the PSU, I'd calculate ~55W furmark.

Although I'd prefer the later value, including your doubts about the idle value, I've got to believe that the first is the more correct one.
It's also in line with th 21% promise from Powercolor and the typical 85..90W Furmark Results from other vendors.

Based on the more likely furmark value, the normal (3D game) value is typically 50% lower, so the G!G is ~50W, which is really nice as its the same as my current 4670 :P

Oh, I just saw you also measured a difference in Watt of ~65W while running 3D mark on your 770. So with the 80% of your PSU - we're again at ~50W for 3D mark G!G Power :wink:

So all I want to understand now is how did they do it - my best guess is still lower voltage :?:

Audiodude
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Post by Audiodude » Thu Mar 04, 2010 4:06 pm

O.K. I think you got something wrong here:

These values:
Idle: 75W
Furmark: 150W
3D Mark 06: 135W (Canyonflight)

where measured with:
Go!Green (with original Heatsink)
MSI 770T-C45
PhenomII X4 910e C&Q activated
2x2GB Kingston DDRII
WD Greenpower 1GB
Seasonic S12II

this was a test setup outside the case for function check of the new parts.
(the Phenom goes in my minix Board)

These Values:
idle consumption is ca. 83W
Furmark ... rises to 134W

were measured with the parts put in my HTPC Rig:
Go!Green (with ZM-GWB3)
MSI 770T-C45
BRISBANE Athlon X2 fixed @ 5x200@0,8Vcore
2x2GB Kingston DDRII
Supertalent SSD
WD Green 2TB (switched of)
Panasonic Bluray Combo
IrTrans VFD/IR
Fortron 200W Flex ATX PSU

So the first values where just for a first impression, furmark wasn't even running at the same settings.

I'm curious too, how they achieved the power savings. It's possible that the bios values are not correct and that the voltages are lower. So we'll see how well the GPU reacts to further undervolting, I'll post results when I have found the time to do that.

Edit: I tried to under and overvolt the UVD mode of the card (using RBE and Winflash) but there was no difference in powerconsumption. So either the voltages are not changable or RBE needs to be updated for that. :roll:

Greetz Audiodude

jack_in_the_box
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Post by jack_in_the_box » Sun Mar 07, 2010 11:49 am

Computerbase_de promised a review of the card after CEBIT after an interview with Powercolor, where they still insisted that there is no voltage drop!
So thanks for all you postings here, this as close to a Review as we can get :D
Audiodude wrote:Edit: I tried to under and overvolt the UVD mode of the card (using RBE and Winflash) but there was no difference in powerconsumption. So either the voltages are not changable or RBE needs to be updated for that. :roll:

Greetz Audiodude
Did RBE allow you to select between the Bios voltage table, the GPU register values or the VTT Register values? And which of this did you change? My best guess is you need the GPU register...
Also I'm not sure what the UVD mode is exactly used for (I think generally it's for 2D video modes, but I've got no glue what that exactly means) So maybe changing the 3D voltage is a little bit easier to verify?
But honestly, I'm not sure if RBE supports the G!G card at all, as it's not close to the reference PCB any more and they have no option to detect what VR is actually used on a given PCB...

Audiodude
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Post by Audiodude » Sun Mar 07, 2010 1:53 pm

Another hint:

I tried to upload the bios using gpuz, but the program said that the bios file has already been uploaded last year. So is the bios actually the same as on the other cards?

The UVD mode is used while watching TV (overlay) and during Bluray playback. The problem is, that the GPU load is very low here and it might not make a big difference if you change voltages.

The 3D mode is also the startup mode wich i did not dare to change...

I changed the voltages on the second page of the RBE (clock settings Power Play Table). These are chosen from bios voltage tables. RBE shows no bios voltages so (according to the help files) the card has only one voltage (wich i don't believe).

Greetz Audiodude


Edit: I just downloaded Furmark 1.8 "Hot like Hell" edition. Then I managed to get idle consumption of the whole system a little lower by switching of every background process i could get my hands on...

So idle was 74W now.

I fired up Furmark with the following settings:

Stability Test
Xtreme Burning Mode
Displacement mapping

Fullscreen @ 1920x1080 60Hz
MSAA 8X

The load Consumption was 124W

The advantage of Furmark 1.8 is that it seems to stress the GPU more (according to GPU-Z) and the CPU less (CPU was fixed to 1000Mhz@0,8Vcore as before).
So if my standby value for the card alone is right (15W, i don't think it's more) then we have 65W Full load for this card. And this is only worst case scenario!

@ Computerbase test: This wouldn't really help, because they measure full system consumption and they do not undervolt and throttle the CPU!
So we have to wait for a test at techPowerUp!, c't or another review site that measures the cards consumption alone.

If anybody want's me to test anything else, tell me!

jack_in_the_box
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Post by jack_in_the_box » Mon Mar 08, 2010 9:08 am

Did you test MSI Afterburner? I think it's more likely to support your card than RBE as it's officially stating VT1165 support. Although not necessary for the 5750 :roll:
http://forums.guru3d.com/showthread.php?t=305908
here you can get it:
http://event.msi.com/vga/afterburner/overview.htm

Good luck!

Audiodude
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Post by Audiodude » Mon Mar 08, 2010 11:11 am

@MSI Afterburner: Did that already, but it shows no voltages and it's not possible to change them. Also AMDs own Overdrive doesn't show any GPU Voltages.

I think the card has so many differences that most proggys don't work with it.

Greetz Audiodude

Audiodude
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Post by Audiodude » Sat Mar 13, 2010 9:10 am

O.K.

drummroll.....

Here are the official (measured by TechPowerUp!) Power Consumption values:

idle: 14W
Maximum: 62W

See for yourself in the TechPowerUp! Review:

http://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Powe ... en/27.html


Greetz Audiodude

TechBari
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Post by TechBari » Sat Mar 13, 2010 11:12 am

Excellent to see that review finally. It looks like it doesn’t disappoint!

maf718
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Post by maf718 » Sat Mar 13, 2010 12:24 pm

It seems that the GoGreen does save the extra power by using a lower GPU voltage. TechPowerUp measured the actual voltage on the card as 1.00 V in all three clock profiles (page 31 of their review). This explains why the load power consumption is very good compared to other 5750 cards, but the idle consumption is nothing to write home about.

It is a shame that the card uses slightly more power at idle than some other 5750s that (presumably) lower the voltage below 1.00 V at idle.

Audiodude
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Post by Audiodude » Sat Mar 13, 2010 12:45 pm

That's right, but for HTPC Use (which i'm interested in) the card is perfectly alright, because even in the Bluray mode (UVD Mode) the card uses less than a standard Card. UVD Mode is used for TV and Video/Bluray.
The 2W less in idle mode are not as important, because the powersavings in the other modes will more than make up for those 2W!
2W are about 1-2% of the consumption my Home Theatre ensemble (The whole AV Tech) is drawing from the wall, i can live with that! The visualisation for my music player (Soundspectrum G-Force) is producing way more consumption than the card draws in idle so it's perfectly alright.

Edit: By the way, this card works perfectly allright with a 200W PSU in my rig.

Greetz Audiodude
Last edited by Audiodude on Sat Mar 13, 2010 5:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

dhanson865
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Post by dhanson865 » Sat Mar 13, 2010 5:00 pm

apparently Newegg sold out of Go green version.

silentplummet
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Post by silentplummet » Sat Mar 13, 2010 11:56 pm

You can have mine. I'm returning it because I experience frequent hard locks and other flakiness at stock frequencies. GPU core temp doesn't exceed 65C in my P183.

Mine simply doesn't work as advertised, I hope for everyone's sake I just got a dud card.

Thinking about going 5770 or 5850 with an aftermarket cooler.

jack_in_the_box
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Post by jack_in_the_box » Sun Mar 14, 2010 3:42 am

@audiodude
Thanks for the link!
Looks like we've both been right in most aspects, your power measurements and my bet on the voltage reduction.
what really surprises me is:
- why they sell it only as a 21% reduction, when in reality they reduced it by much more. According to the techPU measurements it's at least 33% -> thats like a -15% voltage reduction :roll:
- how bold they reassured that the power reduction is only due to improvements in the power regulation and no voltage reduction :cry:

Well I'm not too worried about it, they're strange like Pinky and the Brain?, but hey - that's business :evil:

But I guess the bottomline is you can take any 5750 and perform a HW voltmod or take a 5770 and do a Bios/SW voltmod and you get the very same result. You'd save some $ but loose warranty and time... so I'd still give the product a try!

@silentplummet
What's your mainboard and power supply?
And btw. the 5770 HAWK from MSI might be worth a look for you, as it's really silent and should be SW voltmod'able as well
http://www.guru3d.com/article/msi-r5770-hawk-review/

Audiodude
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Post by Audiodude » Sun Mar 14, 2010 4:51 am

I am a little bit disappointed that I can't alter voltages but in the end, the missing power connector and the overall performance make this card a keeper.

Edit: What really puzzles me is the power reduction that would have been possible with further voltage tweaking. I mean with such an effective vr circuit it should have been possible to get this card under 10W idle and probably even under 55W load (with a good sample)!

Greetz Audiodude

silentplummet
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Post by silentplummet » Sun Mar 14, 2010 7:04 am

I believe my system specs are basically beyond reprove.

Antec P-183 (4x120mm case fans)
Seasonic X-650 gold
Asus P5Q pro turbo
Intel C2D E8400 3GHz
Mushkin Blackline 4GB DDR2-6400

Believe me I have done my homework and stability tested the Lord out of every component in this box. The issue with the Go green 5750 isn't heat, when I slap a fan on it I can keep the core below 45C, and it still can't furmark, or even old games like Portal, without crashing my whole system. It's certainly not a question in my mind whether my power supply is up to it.

Which leaves the card itself, and indeed, when I lower the card from 700/1150 (stock) to 600/1000 it's stable. Unfortunately this isn't acceptable for me because it's an expensive, premium part and I don't see any reason to satisfy myself with anything less than stock performance.

There are also other glitches that plague me on this card like a glitchy second monitor, and when I go to 'test' any new clock settings (even if it's just the stock settings) in CCC I am greeted by a vertical orange/rose colored striped screen. I have to hit esc to get back to my system.

So in summary, this card is about as useful to me as bat guano. I'm returning it tomorrow, unless you want to pay me full price for it.

W1zzard
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Post by W1zzard » Sun Mar 14, 2010 7:07 am

any wishes what else i should test on this card?

Audiodude
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Post by Audiodude » Sun Mar 14, 2010 7:11 am

@ silentplummet: That sounds pretty much like a faulty sample!

I have Stressed my Go! Green more than any card i owned before, and it definitely holds up!

So either you have a faulty card (monday sample) or there is a hidden flaw in your system (unlikely if the card is running with slower clocks).

Give it back and get another sample or a different model.

Greetz Audiodude


@W1zzard: Hey W1zzard, do you have any idea if voltage adjustment is possible in any way except hardware modding?

dhanson865
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Post by dhanson865 » Sun Mar 14, 2010 7:22 am

silentplummet wrote:You can have mine. I'm returning it because I experience frequent hard locks and other flakiness at stock frequencies. GPU core temp doesn't exceed 65C in my P183.

Mine simply doesn't work as advertised, I hope for everyone's sake I just got a dud card.
...
...
...
I am greeted by a vertical orange/rose colored striped screen
Did you update to the 10.2 or 10.3 driver? Many people with 5xxx cards have reported issues like that with the 10.1 and earlier drivers.

Resolved Issues for All Windows Operating Systems as of 10.2

* System will no longer freeze while accessing the UVD Decoder
* Intermittent grey screen or vertical line corruption may randomly appear on the screen

Resolved Issues for the Windows 7 Operating System

* During HD playback, unplugging and hotplugging back the display connector no longer causes player to freeze and display incompatible graphics driver error message
* System no longer fails and screen distortion no longer visible during Blu-ray content playback with 1680x1050 resolution
* Fixed various identified memory leaks in CAL runtime
* Resuming video playback after sleep/hibernation no longer causes black checkered video corruption or the system to stop responding
* Display will now enter power save mode properly

and there are similar fixes for Vista and XP.

Obviously the cards/drivers were released slightly before they were stable but apparently they are fixing these issues.

As of 10.2 they still had problems with Adobe Flash Player 10.1. But most of the bugs were worked out other than Flash.

10.3 will be out in a few days but if you can't wait you can go to http://forums.amd.com/forum/messageview ... did=128314 to get a beta copy of it if you use Vista or Win 7. XP users have to wait for the final release. Though if you are on 10.1 I'd just do the 10.2 final upgrade and see if it fixes some or all of your problems before trying the beta.

W1zzard
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Post by W1zzard » Sun Mar 14, 2010 8:14 am

voltage adjustment via software is possible ... i just tried using my own gputool (non-public beta), check if rivatuner/afterburner/etc work.. they should

Audiodude
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Post by Audiodude » Sun Mar 14, 2010 8:44 am

I checked Afterburner and it doesn't work!

So i'm looking forward to your GPU Tool W1zzard!

Will it be possible to adjust frequency and voltage on the fly like with Powerplay?

Greetz Audiodude

silentplummet
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Post by silentplummet » Sun Mar 14, 2010 8:51 am

I tried both the drivers provided by the manufacturer and ATI's vanilla 10.2. Neither seemed to have any bearing on any aspect of the stability or performance of this card.

The rest of my system is probably the most stable thing in my life at the moment.

I'll send it in for a replacement I guess, but I'm really not happy about it. This isn't just some sketchy el-cheapo board I picked up from best buy. This is a premium part, and they should have tested the damn thing.

jack_in_the_box
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Post by jack_in_the_box » Sun Mar 14, 2010 8:55 am

Audiodude wrote:I am a little bit disappointed that I can't alter voltages but in the end, the missing power connector and the overall performance make this card a keeper.
Not need to be disappointed yet, as future versions of RBE, MSI afterburner or other tools may also support the VR chip of your card on 5750s.
Audiodude wrote:Edit: What really puzzles me is the power reduction that would have been possible with further voltage tweaking. I mean with such an effective vr circuit it should have been possible to get this card under 10W idle and probably even under 55W load (with a good sample)!

Greetz Audiodude
I'm a HW engineer, no gambler and no used car salesman, so I neither want to bet with you, nor convince you. Just my 2Cents: imho the card is really only about voltage reduction, and maybe better/more stable vr. So I wouldn't expect it too be anymore efficient than the plain vanilla reference design vr.

Honestly I'm very pleased with the power consumption values from techPowerUp, and really don't expect to get them some down much further, unfortunately especially not the idle values.

Why? Well to get the load wattage down, first lower the voltage. But the most efficient way to get the idle values down is not only to get the voltage and clock further down (btw. clk is already down to 157MHz so there is not much more to go).

If you look at all the idle results in reviews, you'll notice that comparing similar cards, not always the cards with the lowest idle voltage will have the lowest consumption.
But you need more for low idle wattage than just a low GPU idle voltage, e.g. you need a good VR efficiency at low wattage and that often means a worse efficiency at high loads.
Then there is is the RAM.
Usually the idle RAM voltage is the same as in load. So with 1GB highspeed RAM you need already a lot of juice for that. I remember seeing reviews showing that the difference between 512MB and 1GB GFX cards might be as small as 2-3W typ., but that was much slower RAM and also means in idle you still have easily more than 5W just for the 1GB RAM. Then there is the memory controller inside the GPU, which is seperately powered by the RAM voltage and clk, so no saving there in idle. But I thinks it's getting to technical again :)
Just wanted to point to, that there is probably quite a high minimal wattage you'll never get below with a 5750, even with further voltage tweaking ...
Last edited by jack_in_the_box on Sun Mar 14, 2010 2:13 pm, edited 1 time in total.

jack_in_the_box
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Post by jack_in_the_box » Sun Mar 14, 2010 8:58 am

W1zzard wrote:any wishes what else i should test on this card?
I would be interested in the o'clocking results. The 10% from techPowerUp suggest the card might be close to the limit with the 1.0V ?

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