Photo courtesy of John Leidel of InsideHPC.
If you are one of those people that hates all the extra power connectors that several modern video cards require just to sustain basic function, then your not gonna like the new GT300 (Fermi) From Nvidia. Seems that 6GB of GDDR5 memory pushes things a bit too close to the line, resulting in two additional power connectors.
In case of upcoming high-memory configurations nVidia Tesla, Quadro and GeForce cards, the company had to install a 6-pin and an 8-pin connector, getting 300W of power to play with. However, this was a precautionary measure. According to information we have at hand, the GT300 board [yeah, featuring “Fermi” CUDA architecture] barely missed 225W cut-off for the 6+6 pin if the board comes with 6GB of GDDR5 memory.
nVidia could have gotten 6+6-pin configuration and still ship 6GB version, but the margin of efficiency would be just too low [even with digital PWM, boards cannot be 100% power efficient] to qualify inside OEM systems. The decision was thus made and the 6GB cards come with 300W of available power.
Better start shopping around for power supplies.
via nVidia GT300 real power consumption revealed: Not 300W! – Bright Side Of News*.
