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If I'd have bought a new, good GPU 2 years ago that GPU would have been huge. In some older cases it wouldnt even fit. If I'd buy the same GPU today it would be small, just a little bit bigger than the GPU's used back in the 90's. Does the size indicate that the GPU is less powerful? My thought about this would be that the size is mainly the cooling, and since the cooling tecnology did not change in the last 2 years, it means that the newer GPU needs less cooling, less cooling most of the times translates to less power consumption.

How do for example 2 Nvidia GTX 650 (a new one and a 2 years old with same memory and specs) compare?

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Does the size indicate that the GPU is less powerful?

It depends. Technology advances. For example the difference between Ivybridge and Haswell products is that Haswell products consume less power thus keeping everything else identical would run cooler.

My thought about this would be that the size is mainly the cooling, and since the cooling tecnology did not change in the last 2 years, it means that the newer GPU needs less cooling, less cooling most of the times translates to less power consumption.

Its not about the "cooling technology" it has to do with the physical size of the silicon of the GPU itself. The major difference between a GPU from 2 years would be the size of the silicon. This means they can develop a product SKU that is identical in nearly every specification except that its smaller. This is the reason low-profile SKUs can exist even with a modern GPU core.

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  • thank you. so basically they are the same even if the size is less than half the old one.. Nov 12, 2014 at 12:35
  • @sharkyenergy - No? When did I ever say anything about "half the old one" don't read into anything I said. What I said is exactly what I meant.
    – Ramhound
    Nov 12, 2014 at 12:42
  • There are various types of cooling - generally "blower" type coolers will be longer than radial fans, which will be larger than liquid cooled - for the same card/silicon - unless you compare identical styles, then it's not a true apples-to-apples comparison. Nov 12, 2014 at 12:58
  • I am going to leave this as a comment. There is no way a GPU core is going to have the same model if its been made smaller using a different manufacturing process ( i.e. 22nm, 18nm, etc. ). So the title of the question makes little sense for that reason.
    – Ramhound
    Nov 12, 2014 at 16:20

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