Nvidia GeForce GTX 275 896MB Review

Heat & Acoustics

Here we have a bit of a double edged sword when it comes to heat versus noise. Basically, the Nvidia GTX 275 is as quiet as a mouse but boy does it make a sacrifice in temperatures. From what I could tell, neither the temperature nor load parameters have any effect on fan speed. If you want a quiet card, this is it but be prepared for some shockingly high temperatures.

Power Consumption

For this test we hooked up our power supply to a UPM power meter that will log the power consumption of the whole system twice every second. In order to stress the GPU as much as possible we once again use the Batch Render test in 3DMark06 and let it run for 30 minutes to determine the peak power consumption while letting the card sit at a stable Windows desktop for 30 minutes to determine the peak idle power consumption. We have also included several other tests as well. Please note that after extensive testing, we have found that simply plugging in a power meter to a wall outlet or UPS will NOT give you accurate power consumption numbers due to slight changes in the input voltage. Thus we use a Tripp-Lite 1800W line conditioner between the 120V outlet and the power meter.


When it comes to the grand ATI versus Nvidia power consumption debate, there are two sides of the coin. On one side you have the excellent idle power consumption of the Nvidia cards while on the other side you have the efficiency of ATI’s peak load numbers. When compared to other Nvidia cards, the GTX 275 offers and excellent performance per watt ratio but ATI has rained on that parade by posting excellent full load power consumption.

As these numbers reflect a scenario with next to no CPU usage, if you are planning on buying a GTX 275 I would recommend nothing less than a good 600W power supply.