Power consumption and temperatures
GeForce GTX 480 is fast, no doubt about it, but what's the cost of such performance?
The under-load numbers are measured after 10 minutes of FurMark. What's important to note is that FurMark loads the NVIDIA and ATI GPUs a little differently, where one is likely to see a higher figure for GeForces.
That being so, the new GeForce 400-series cards can pull a lot of juice when running flat out. Real-world gaming doesn't hit the cards quite as hard, and we noted a maximum power-draw that was 15 per cent lower than what's stated in the graph.
Temperature
A lot of juice means considerable heat and load on the cooler(s). This is why the GeForce GTX 480's excellent heatsink has to work overtime in keeping the GPU under 100°C.
