The Power Party is About Over
It’s ironic that just about every component of a computer system is getting more and more efficient (including PSU’s themselves), but the wattage requirements for enthusiast rigs keep going up and up.
As examples for efficiency, modern CPU’s require less wattage than they did a few years ago. LCD monitors suck up about 30 watts max as compared to the 130 watts of a common CRT. The USB powered craze forced peripheral makers to watch power consumption and design that way. The move toward notebook/mobile computing has really pushed computer component makers to look at power budgets verses performance. Our “greening” attitude (whether from heart or wallet) has contributed to advancements such as the “80 Plus” certification for PSUs; a trend not unnoticed by marketing gurus.
Antec's 1200 Watt monster - how much bigger can we go? Not Much.
So why do we need more power when everything is so much more efficient? Well, there is one component maker that hasn’t really cared about efficiency much until now. Who? Oh come on, you guys know! What’s becoming the #1 heat generator in your uber gaming rig? What’s now taking more power to operate than the CPU? What is driving the PC to become the biggest power consuming device in a house outside of an electric oven?
Video Cards.
The power consumption on video cards has risen and risen. We checked an 8800 GTX and found it sucking 80+ watts at idle. At load we suspect they (high end cards) use up to 200 watts. In a Three card SLI system that’s 600 watts. Driven by the unending need to supply benchmarks for gamers, efficiency has been thrown out the door for brute force. PSU makers have followed along because, well, why not, it sells more (and larger) PSUs. Why should graphic card makers adhere to efficiency philosophies? After all, FPS is far more important than anything else right? Gamers want it - so they make it – dam the torpedoes – and efficient design. It’s your RIGHT to have the highest FPS possible – no matter what! Gaming is what drives the PC market! People who talk about efficiency are just tree huggers – Gaming is about economics! Yada yada yoda.
Well, the power party is about to end.
A typical US home uses one circuit for the outlets in a typical bedroom or typical office room. That typical circuit is 15 amps at 120 volts. Doing the math, that’s 1800 watts of available power from the wall in a room. A high quality power supply is 80% efficient. That means PSUs over 1440 watts are over the limit. And you can knock another 200-300 watts off that for the power things like monitors, printers, lamps and other peripherals suck up. The largest practical power supply is really about 1200 watts.
But, but, but…High FPS and realistic graphics take this much power – there’s no way around it!
Think again Charlie. Recently (at CES 2008) Paul Lilly had a chance to step up next to a three card SLI rig with the side cover off. Wanna know what it felt like? Go grab your girlfriend’s (ok sisiter’s…(fine, mother’s)) hair dryer and pop it on full and blow it in your face. A bit toasty? Welcome to inefficiency.
That heat coming off the graphic cards not only means you need to waste more wattage cooling your rig, but every degree coming off the cards is wasted wattage the manufacture didn’t care about (but you pay for). If you live in Alaska, you might welcome it – but to the rest of us it’s PC death.
The future? Well, nVidia and ATI can see the writing on the wall – they are about to hit it after all. My Crystal ball says GPUs are about to “go green”.
- Chris
As examples for efficiency, modern CPU’s require less wattage than they did a few years ago. LCD monitors suck up about 30 watts max as compared to the 130 watts of a common CRT. The USB powered craze forced peripheral makers to watch power consumption and design that way. The move toward notebook/mobile computing has really pushed computer component makers to look at power budgets verses performance. Our “greening” attitude (whether from heart or wallet) has contributed to advancements such as the “80 Plus” certification for PSUs; a trend not unnoticed by marketing gurus.
Antec's 1200 Watt monster - how much bigger can we go? Not Much.
So why do we need more power when everything is so much more efficient? Well, there is one component maker that hasn’t really cared about efficiency much until now. Who? Oh come on, you guys know! What’s becoming the #1 heat generator in your uber gaming rig? What’s now taking more power to operate than the CPU? What is driving the PC to become the biggest power consuming device in a house outside of an electric oven?
Video Cards.
The power consumption on video cards has risen and risen. We checked an 8800 GTX and found it sucking 80+ watts at idle. At load we suspect they (high end cards) use up to 200 watts. In a Three card SLI system that’s 600 watts. Driven by the unending need to supply benchmarks for gamers, efficiency has been thrown out the door for brute force. PSU makers have followed along because, well, why not, it sells more (and larger) PSUs. Why should graphic card makers adhere to efficiency philosophies? After all, FPS is far more important than anything else right? Gamers want it - so they make it – dam the torpedoes – and efficient design. It’s your RIGHT to have the highest FPS possible – no matter what! Gaming is what drives the PC market! People who talk about efficiency are just tree huggers – Gaming is about economics! Yada yada yoda.
Well, the power party is about to end.
A typical US home uses one circuit for the outlets in a typical bedroom or typical office room. That typical circuit is 15 amps at 120 volts. Doing the math, that’s 1800 watts of available power from the wall in a room. A high quality power supply is 80% efficient. That means PSUs over 1440 watts are over the limit. And you can knock another 200-300 watts off that for the power things like monitors, printers, lamps and other peripherals suck up. The largest practical power supply is really about 1200 watts.
But, but, but…High FPS and realistic graphics take this much power – there’s no way around it!
Think again Charlie. Recently (at CES 2008) Paul Lilly had a chance to step up next to a three card SLI rig with the side cover off. Wanna know what it felt like? Go grab your girlfriend’s (ok sisiter’s…(fine, mother’s)) hair dryer and pop it on full and blow it in your face. A bit toasty? Welcome to inefficiency.
That heat coming off the graphic cards not only means you need to waste more wattage cooling your rig, but every degree coming off the cards is wasted wattage the manufacture didn’t care about (but you pay for). If you live in Alaska, you might welcome it – but to the rest of us it’s PC death.
The future? Well, nVidia and ATI can see the writing on the wall – they are about to hit it after all. My Crystal ball says GPUs are about to “go green”.
- Chris
Total Comments 6
Comments
 |  Great blog Chris!! |
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| |  Nice little read! Thanks for that!  |
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| |  Really nice and right on target. Thanks Chris for an informative and eye opening blog! Ron |
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| |  I agree, these guys are really gonna need to start getting their video solutions into the "green." They won't be able to afford not to. Not only is the industry becoming more attuned to power requirements, so are the consumers. And more than anything else, consumers voting with their wallets will be the only thing that changes the current state of video cards sucking power out of your wall. Right now, the consumer wants max performance and damn the consequences. As a newer generation of computer geeks takes on the roll of informing their fellow man about PC upgrades needing to be environmentally friendly, us older geeks are just getting sick and tired of trying to tame the devilish, heat lovin beasts we are placing in our homes at an ever increasing rate. |
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| |  Very well done....I saw the wheels turning in your head last week when we were talking about this, and figured something like this was coming. |
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| |  I wondered how high a PSU could go on a normal household circuit. Great blog. |
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Recent Blog Entries by MantaBase
- The Power Party is About Over (January 19th, 2008)
- Microsoft: We're in yur drive, hacking yur system. (December 13th, 2007)
