The Power Party is About Over

[MantaBase]

"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”."

The Power Party is About Over - HardwareLogic Forums

Thanks STinger!

[screwballl]

we can hope... would be nice to get back into 100W GPUs.
but there is one thing missing... the connection...
power supply manufacturers want power consumption high so they can make more on their higher end units.

[Reloadron]

Really true and right on target! Makes you wonder.

Ron

[MantaBase]

Originally Posted by screwballl

we can hope... would be nice to get back into 100W GPUs.
but there is one thing missing... the connection...
power supply manufacturers want power consumption high so they can make more on their higher end units.

That may be true - but they have also hit the wall (the one your AC socket is in).

I doubt (high end) GPUs will drop to 100watts - but basically, they are going to have to find a way to get more performance out of a GPU with no power increases. And Guess what - you know who has the jump on that technology? Just about everyone except nVidia. This could be a good chance for ATI or even one of the also rans. And I am an nVidia fan boy of sorts saying that. Even transmeta knows more about efficiancy than nVidia - go figure. Will this be the return of S3 and Matrox? We shall see.

Manta

[OcciferFriendly]

Is efficiency really expressed by the PC community? Sure, everything else is getting more efficient, but if we keep buying 8800 Ultras and if SLI and Crossfire remain popular - and they will because the monitors keep getting bigger.....what I'm getting at is that there's no incentive yet for the GPU makers to care about efficiency.

I think it's something that needs to be expressed to the GPU makers, I just wonder how.

[MantaBase]

Originally Posted by OcciferFriendly

....what I'm getting at is that there's no incentive yet for the GPU makers to care about efficiency.

I thought I made the point - there is no more power for them. They either care about efficiancy, or it's over. They are well aware, believe me. I'm positive that PSU makers have warned them. Sure, a company can put out a 1600 watt PSU (and I think one has), but that power is not available for use. So there you have it.

Maybe I wasn't clear?

Manta

BTW - thank guys for reading it - I know it's just a blog :)

[Capper]

Yes, believe it or not, there is actually a 2000 W PSU on the market.....Ultra has one.

As to the issue, the point Chris is trying to make is 110V sockets cannot support that much. I believe a 20A circuit is what you would need.....and even then, you couldn't run anything else off that circuit.

If these companies keep pushing the envelope on the power these cards need, people are goiong to have to cut power draw from other components, or have a complete circuit in their house dedicated to their PC

[Reloadron]

Originally Posted by Capper

Yes, believe it or not, there is actually a 2000 W PSU on the market.....Ultra has one.

As to the issue, the point Chris is trying to make is 110V sockets cannot support that much. I believe a 20A circuit is what you would need.....and even then, you couldn't run anything else off that circuit.

If these companies keep pushing the envelope on the power these cards need, people are goiong to have to cut power draw from other components, or have a complete circuit in their house dedicated to their PC

Exactly, lets look at something:

nVidia Multi Card

8800 Ultra 3x SLI__458W
8800 Ultra SLI ____248W
8800 GTX SLI_____| 246W
8800 GT SLI______179W
8800 GTS SLI_____198W
8600 GTS SLI_____ 92W

ATI Multi Card

HD 2900 XT CF____ 260W (2x 1GB GDDR4)
HD 2900 XT CF____ 295W
X1950 XTX CF_____ 230W
X1900 XTX CF_____ 222W (XTX with XT master card)
X1900 XT CF______ 201W
X1950 Pro CF_____ 123W
X1900 GT CF _____150W ²
X1800 XT CF______216W
X1800 XL CF______124W (XL with XT master card)
X1600 XT CF______ 94W
X1600 PRO CF____ 82W ²
X1300 PRO CF____ 72W

Now granted the number I found for 3X 8800 in SLI is lower than what Chris has but either way, just using my numbers if we configure three 8800s in SLI and run then at full bore those cards alone will draw over 38 Amps of 12 Volt power. That is one hell of alot of current.

As Chris really gets into the curve is expodential in nature and exactly the opposite of what the CPU families have been doing. Looking at today's CPUs we really are getting more for less. We get more processing power for less overall power usage. Not just that but we get more processing power combined with less power usage for a lower cost.

When we look at the GPU families this is not the case. We are getting more Graphics Processing Power as we use considerably more power and at a higher cost per card. I don't see the end user gaining here.

We could look at this as the second wall these cards have hit. With the advent of the PCI-E slot came the 24 pin main motherboard power connector. Other than adding 3.3 and 5 Volt power we added another 12 Volt line. The higher end graphics cards at the time still needed the addition of yet another power connector for 12 Volt power. That connector afforded three 12 Volt lines and three commons. The lines are in parallel to allow more power delivered since the wire gage was small. Then what? Hell just add yet another connector beside the already added connector. I wonder where that will end? However, they did manage to get through or over the wall.

Now the new wall and as Chris points out this wall does not exist within the equipment but is the lowly wall outlet in our dwellings delivering power to our now gigantic PSU. Lets look at that little quagmire. Think about the PSUs of not long ago. A simple little 250 Watt PSU ran a basic system. Today a 1 KW PSU is not as rare as it once was. Yet, this same PSU capable of 4X the power has not really grown much in physical size. Remarkible considering what they do. Like Chris said, do the math! The next thing that happens is we call an electrician because we now need 30 Amp service outlets just to power our computer PSU to power our new GPU. This scenario is followed in a few years with a call to the power company to install a dedicated sub-station in our back yard just to support our gamming rig. OK, I stretched it.

We have now acheived a mindset that when we chase FPS we immediately go PSU shopping. Like it's some natural process. New GPU = New PSU. Go figure?

Yeah, the manufacturers need to get off their asses and start applying the same thought process Intel and AMD have applied to processors. That or we the consumer can continue to feed them simply because they choose to rely on brute force rather than develop a product that does more for less.

What Chris wrote and neatly packaged should serve as a wakeup call. We need to change our mindset and manufacturers need to start giving more for less.

Ron

[MantaBase]

Originally Posted by Reloadron

Exactly, lets look at something:


Now granted the number I found for 3X 8800 in SLI is lower than what Chris has but either way, just using my numbers if we configure three 8800s in SLI and run then at full bore those cards alone will draw over 38 Amps of 12 Volt power. That is one hell of alot of current.

Where the heck did you find that chart??
I looked every where!

Rich measured an 8800 GTX at 87 watts IDLE. The reason I think you are looking at more than 200watts per card is because the board can supply 150 watts and each PCI-E can supply 150 watts (and since I suck at math I added that up to 700 watts when it's actually 600 - lol).

Lets see - for fun

2000 watt PSU operating at 80%+ efficiancy needs 2400 watts at the wall for full power. Thats' 800 more watts than a 15 amp AC circuit and 200 more than a 20 amp circuit.

[screwballl]

~123W for my card? cool...

Manta, just for fun, run those numbers at 220V instead of 110.