The next best gaming rig 1.5 kW power - Totally ABSURD!

[IckyATLAS]

There is a trend which will hit a stone wall. We are not talking FPS anymore but KiloWatts.

The next top gaming rig will have a 4090 Card at 650-800 Watts and a 12900KS or 13900KS CPU with at least 250-200 Watts at full power (no OC). When adding the power consumption of all other components SSD, RAM, Motherboard, CPU Cooling, PC cooling, then a 1.5 kW PSU is the bare minimum for such a system. That's just ridiculous.

The cost of electricity is rising and this goes really in the wrong direction.

I have 13kW solar power production and 26kW batteries in my home so I could afford a 1.5kW unit at no energy cost but this is the power level for a kitchen cooking appliance. How to fight for climate change if we do produce so much heat.

This race to the KiloWatt must stop.

 

 

 

 

Edited May 10, 2022 by IckyATLAS

[1Sascha]

Looking at my own, more recent, GPU history over the past 14 or so years:

 

GF 260, TDP: 180W (fried my crappy PSU with that one back then ? )

GF 460, TDP: 160W

GF 660, TDP: 140W

GF 1060 3GB, TDP: 120W

 

there seems to be a clear trend of more performance and less power-consumption. Seems that went out the window a generation ago or so ... the 3060 is listed at 170W, the 3060 TI I'm eyeing is at 200W. Both of which I still find acceptable, given the added performance... but 600 - 800 W for the top end cards of the 40xx generation would probably mean around 400W for the 4060 and that's just laughable. Heck, if these power-draw-figures turn out to be accurate, a 4080 or 4090 would draw more power on its own than all the rails of my 550W Seasonic PSU combined could provide .

 

All this would still be unacceptable if had moved away from fossil fuels further than we currently have. And it's especially worrying IMO since a lot of these cards will probably end up in some crypto-mining rigs or -farms, burning energy and producing massive amounts of heat to create, basically, nothing.

 

S.

[IckyATLAS]

8 hours ago, 1Sascha said:

since a lot of these cards will probably end up in some crypto-mining rigs or -farms, burning energy and producing massive amounts of heat to create, basically, nothing.

Very true. But this is because they do not pay the right cost of electricity for computing and cooling. If they would pay the right cost, carbon tax and whatever other tax there is then probably those farms would close the next day.

I am not against blockchain and crypto as a principle, so against a political ban as some countries have done. Simply make them pay the normal price + environmental impact tax for the energy they use, that would be enough.  This will oblige the cryptos to innovate in the processing model they have which today is total nonsense as it cannot be scaled without gobbling the worlds electricity. New blockchain systems must emerge that are extremely more efficient in terms of energy versus transaction proofing. Otherwise they must disappear altogether because they are simply not sustainable.

 

When one just pauses to consider what all the crypto mining farms around the world have in aggregate computing power, just to make complex calculation for nothing, just nothing except heating the atmosphere, what a waste. This power equivalent to many of the world supercomputers could be put to use for developing new solution to treat diseases, improve various technologies all this to the benefit of humanity. That is a worthy noble cause for all this hardware that is just wasted for greed and speculation.

 

[Lusekofte]

VR made me stop for a bit. 

I can afford the best, but having the best at all times cost 4k$ every 6 month.

I needed a second rig, I bought a 3080

And G2 goggles. Not anywhere near the best for the first time in my life.

I just jumped off this hype train.

I now find myself on "it will do train"

 

Edited May 11, 2022 by LuseKofte

[IckyATLAS]

3 minutes ago, LuseKofte said:

I just jumped off this hype train.

I am afraid I will jump too most probably with the coming next gen when you need a small fusion reactor to run the rig.

[simfan2015]

Anyone who is playing dcs with the latest vr headset is forced to buy the 4090 ti with the 1500w PSU to try to get the much needed 90 fps. No way around it but to pay the leather jacket guy! 

[Lusekofte]

2 hours ago, IckyATLAS said:

I am afraid I will jump too most probably with the coming next gen when you need a small fusion reactor to run the rig.

I am afraid I become matured , or come to the conclution , I find the cockpit adequate pretty without a 2000$ vr goggle, I give a shit in spotting. Its not the image, it is me getting unfocused.

I simply won't rebuild or buy a rig for a few un noticeable less fps or slightly better image.

I will if VR goggles get less big and keep some sort of quality. It become ridiculous costly having latest. I care less about the electrical bill. It simply a hypetrain only keeping one satisfied for a few month

[dburne]

1 hour ago, simfan2015 said:

Anyone who is playing dcs with the latest vr headset is forced to buy the 4090 ti with the 1500w PSU to try to get the much needed 90 fps. No way around it but to pay the leather jacket guy! 

 

Yep I will probably be very early in line when they come out. And if requires a new power supply so be it. Now if they release the non Ti 4090 first I may be tempted to hold out for the Ti version. Maybe.

 

I have a 3090 EVGA FTW3 Ultra now, definitely not tempted by the 3090 Ti.

Edited May 11, 2022 by dburne

[BeastyBaiter]

I don't think you'll be needing a 1500w PSU. the typical wall plug in the USA is restricted to 1800w, and often that's split for an entire room/wall/etc. That 600w number is for an engineering sample. Allegedly it will be a massive space heater though. Also worth noting the RX 7900XT is supposed to be around 300-325w and probably perform very similarly. Give it a healthy overclock + an overclocked cpu and you're looking at somewhere around 700w max. SSD's use basically no power, as does RAM and other system devices. I think the SSD in my machine is rated at something around 0.05w. ?

 

I just swapped out my 750w PSU for a 1000w though. Decided I couldn't wait for an upgrade and so I ordered a 6950xt to replace my old 2080 super (DCS no longer playable, 25 fps in VR with apache on low-ish detail). That hasn't shown up yet though.

[1Sascha]

6 hours ago, BeastyBaiter said:

SSD's use basically no power, as does RAM and other system devices. I think the SSD in my machine is rated at something around 0.05w

Haven't looked into it, but seeing how my M.2 SSD is usually one of the hottest (sometimes even *the* hottest) component in my system, that's quite a lot of heat it seems to generate for such a low wattage... ? It's basically always at least in the low 50s °C - and yes... that's probably also due to the fact that it's living right between my CPU and GPU.

 

Oops, just looked it up: Samsung 970 Evo Plus 1TB, rated consumption at idle is 30 mW, average draw in operation is 5.5 W. Which I'm more than happy to "spend", mind you. And it's probably still less or at least way more bang for buck when compared to an old school HDD.

 

S.

[IckyATLAS]

7 hours ago, BeastyBaiter said:

Give it a healthy overclock + an overclocked cpu and you're looking at somewhere around 700w max. SSD's use basically no power, as does RAM and other system devices. I think the SSD in my machine is rated at something around 0.05w

What about the cooling system. I have in total three 140mm fans, and 4 120mm fans. Then I have a pump from the CPU to the radiator. The total consumption is not negligible here and it should add to the previous one. 

[BeastyBaiter]

They aren't powerless of course, but take a look at the labels on them sometime. I'm pretty sure if you added everything other than the CPU and GPU together, you'd come up with less than 100w peak usage and a good chance it's more like 50w peak with 10w-15w average. As an example, the random Corsair 140mm fan sitting next to me is 12v and 0.2A. That's 2.4w at max speed and I don't run fans at 100%.

 

Traditionally it is recommended to have a PSU rated at twice the power of the CPU + GPU at peak. This is for efficiency, service life and PSU fan noise. I'm not sure this advice makes a lot of sense today though. It was the rule 20 years ago but PSU's are a lot better now than they were back then.

 

In regards to the NVMe's running hot, yes, that's due to location mostly. My system has 2, one is between the CPU and GPU and the other is located directly under the GPU exhaust. They don't generate much heat themselves under normal conditions, it's all just sucking it up from external sources. They can get hot on their own when doing massive file copies but in general are just the ambient temperature. Putting them in the GPU exhaust makes them run unusually hot at idle but does prevent those temperature spikes when they are heavily used.

[1Sascha]

7 hours ago, BeastyBaiter said:

I'm pretty sure if you added everything other than the CPU and GPU together, you'd come up with less than 100w peak usage and a good chance it's more like 50w peak with 10w-15w average

Oh yeah.. no disagreement from me there. Because I had it lying around unused and sealed, I'm using a 550W Seasonic for a system with an i5 12600K, a 1060 3GB (both OCed), 16 GB DDR4 with an M.2, a regular SSD, an HDD and an ODD. Plus 2x140mm fans, 1x120mm RGB fan, a 240mm AiO with another 2 RGB fans and some other RGB-crap and when I put all that into several PSU power-calculators, none would tell me that 550W wasn't enough for this system. In fact, I probably have 100 W or slightly more to spare as is and could even swap the 1060 for a 3060 or 3060Ti.

 

S.

 

[Jaws2002]

Nvidia and Intel lost their freaking minds. They are pushing this insane power draw on hardware to look like they are competitive.

 

I have a 3080Ti and just look at the bloody power draw of the graphics card during Portroyal. It sucks up to 450W under load.

 I could take about a week at full power and I had to undervolt the GPU to keep it from putting too much heat around my desk. In the summer it's not so bad, because i place the computer closer to the AC vent, but it's stupid to waste so much power with just the GPU. 

 I wanted to get more stable drivers, but if I had to do it again, I'd probably get an AMD card, just because it's a much more power efficient design. 

All that extra power sure gets a few extra frames, but it got stupid because you are going to need so much more energy for cooling, and all that is going to end up in he room next to you.

 

Edited May 29, 2022 by Jaws2002

[Lusekofte]

VR to me works fine as long as I fly so little as I do now. I will more likely fly DCS with 49 " screen and 2 to 3 more screens for system. I find VR limited in DCS. It is way more immersive flying with seperate screens when flying modern systems. VR becomes interesting with less modern than KA 50, like Huey Gazelle MI 8 and Hind, and F5 or Skyhawk. 

[dburne]

1 hour ago, LuseKofte said:

VR to me works fine as long as I fly so little as I do now. I will more likely fly DCS with 49 " screen and 2 to 3 more screens for system. I find VR limited in DCS. It is way more immersive flying with seperate screens when flying modern systems. VR becomes interesting with less modern than KA 50, like Huey Gazelle MI 8 and Hind, and F5 or Skyhawk. 

 

I can not imagine any monitors no matter how big or how many, even approaching the immersion of VR. But that is me. I spend several hours each day in VR. Guess I am an addict LOL.

[Dallas88B]

On 5/28/2022 at 1:12 PM, Jaws2002 said:

They are pushing this insane power draw on hardware to look like they are competitive.

 

I have a 3080Ti and just look at the bloody power draw of the graphics card during Portroyal. It sucks up to 450W under load.

 I could take about a week at full power and I had to undervolt the GPU

I had a 1070, now I have a nvidia 3070. Thats good enought for me (no VR - just a nice 34inch UWQHD 160Hz G-Sync HDR IPS ) but damn it puts out some heat if you run it with default settings. Not nice in a small room in the sub tropics in summer. I undervolted it too ... saved over 100w power draw and a lot of heat for only a couple of FPS less. But this power draw issue is something I will certainly investigate thoroughly before any future GPU upgrade. If AMD is better then that would suit me... no point being 'loyal' to companies... thats a one way street.

Edited June 2, 2022 by Dallas88B