During years, GPU designers never looked at power consumption and over years, GPU becomes the most power draining component of a computer. AMD seems to have finally understood the lesson, initiated with the Radeon HD 4770, the founder is now working on reducing power draining for 2D rendering. If one could have imagine the new record high energy required to power the forthcoming Radeon HD 5970 (featuring 2 GPUs, same one found in the Radeon HD 5870), final figures indicate that it could be much more sober than initially thought.
Of course, when fully loaded, the GPU will drain 294W, it will only consume 42W for 2D rendering, so less than the Radeon HD 4870, despite 2 GB of VRAM. This is a significant effort in power management and design. This can only serve the end users by offering more power for the same or even less power consumption.
