Power Consumption
I have to believe that power consumption is less of a consideration in the ultra-high-end workstation space than any other market. If you need one of these card’s muscle, then you need it. Even 100 extra watts isn’t going to dissuade you if a certain graphics processor will help get jobs done faster, allowing you to make more money.
With that said, the results here are hardly a surprise. AMD’s FirePro V9800 enjoys slightly lower idle power use—a testament to the company’s ability to spin down its Cypress GPU when it’s not being used. Under load, however, you can’t get away from the fact that this board hosts a massive 4 GB frame buffer and the architecture’s complete implementation. Nvidia benefits from a smaller frame buffer and a significantly cut-back version of the GF100 GPU.
