Power Consumption And Noise
Power Dissipation
Subjected to a heavy workload, all of our tested boards draw less than 50 W. At such modest power levels, even low-profile cards are easy to cool. Idle power consumption of 10 W or less is almost negligible when you consider the target market for these products. Nvidia's Quadro cards stand out as particularly power-friendly. Under load, power consumption roughly corresponds to performance. AMD's FirePro V3900 is the fastest offering, but it also uses the most power.
Sound Level
In this story, we're measuring acoustics from a distance of 20” (50 cm) perpendicular to the installed cards. Although these small boards are rated at low TDPs and to not dissipate a lot of heat, their small cooling fans become quite audible, even under a modest workload. The sound levels of the FirePro V3900 and the Quadro 600 are almost identical, both at idle and at full load. However, the inexpensive consumer-grade GeForce cards have more aggressive fan speed profiles, resulting in higher noise levels.
