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Up to 600 watts of power for graphics cards with the new PCIe 5.0 powerconnector

igorslab.de

21–30 of 182 posts

Re: Up to 600 watts of power for graphics cards with the new PCIe 5.0 powerconnector

#21
post #15

I'll be honest, it's very hard for me to imagine what I would do that would demand anywhere near 600 watts for a graphics card alone. I mean my PC can draw at most 120 watts and that feels like a lot, although the PC is pretty old by now. All of this for crypto? How many games are there out there that draw anywhere near this level of wattage just for graphics?

I do photogrammetry. That's one use that will max out the entire system (not just the graphics card) for hours on end that has nothing to do with games or cc's. Just as an example.

600W worth of photogrammetry?

Re: Up to 600 watts of power for graphics cards with the new PCIe 5.0 powerconnector

#22

I'll be honest, it's very hard for me to imagine what I would do that would demand anywhere near 600 watts for a graphics card alone. I mean my PC can draw at most 120 watts and that feels like a lot, although the PC is pretty old by now. All of this for crypto? How many games are there out there that draw anywhere near this level of wattage just for graphics?

> All of this for crypto?

ML training

Re: Up to 600 watts of power for graphics cards with the new PCIe 5.0 powerconnector

#23
post #10

Assuming you can install two GPUs using 600W, that's basically running a hair dryer in your desktop since most of the energy is converted to heat.

Why is this being downvoted? If you have a kilowatt (I wanted to type that out instead of write KW to emphasize it) coming out of the wall that energy has to go somewhere. Literally warm your room during winter and turn down your heater.

Re: Up to 600 watts of power for graphics cards with the new PCIe 5.0 powerconnector

#24
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4K Gaming at 120FPS with Ray Tracing would easily push pass 300 to 400W. Even on a hypothetical 5nm GPU.

Ok, this is a tangent, but this kind of stuff irks me. Is there no love anymore for making things pretty enough but actually keeping things efficient? Do game devs (even AAA people) not like the family of things like 0x5F3759DF anymore? Efficiency aside, simply pushing the power requirements doesn't even bring home the bacon. Nintendo's "lateral thinking with withered technology" works super well, just look at the sw…

For a game dev they'd rather release a broken game and start selling sooner than spend time and money polishing it and not selling copies. Gamers don't buy games because the code is performant.

Re: Up to 600 watts of power for graphics cards with the new PCIe 5.0 powerconnector

#25
post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

4K Gaming at 120FPS with Ray Tracing would easily push pass 300 to 400W. Even on a hypothetical 5nm GPU.

Ok, this is a tangent, but this kind of stuff irks me. Is there no love anymore for making things pretty enough but actually keeping things efficient? Do game devs (even AAA people) not like the family of things like 0x5F3759DF anymore? Efficiency aside, simply pushing the power requirements doesn't even bring home the bacon. Nintendo's "lateral thinking with withered technology" works super well, just look at the sw…

Gamedev is still full of clever people pushing graphics cards to their limits. The kinds of tricks are different nowadays, as most of the work is done on the GPU, and the important thing is to keep it busy with highly parallel, branchless code with good memory locality.

Re: Up to 600 watts of power for graphics cards with the new PCIe 5.0 powerconnector

#26
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do photogrammetry. That's one use that will max out the entire system (not just the graphics card) for hours on end that has nothing to do with games or cc's. Just as an example.

600W worth of photogrammetry?

You ask a question, you get an answer and then you doubt the answer. That's not nice.

Re: Up to 600 watts of power for graphics cards with the new PCIe 5.0 powerconnector

#27
I’ve always thought of gaming as a virtuous low-impact form of entertainment, insofar as it displaces real-world pursuits like foreign ski holidays, gasoline-powered road trips, or land-hogging golf courses.

But burning nearly a kilowatt on a gaming rig feels like a step too far. Sure, the power could be sourced from wind or solar plants, but there’s still a level of excessive conspicuous consumption going on here that doesn’t sit right with me.

Re: Up to 600 watts of power for graphics cards with the new PCIe 5.0 powerconnector

#28
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I do photogrammetry. That's one use that will max out the entire system (not just the graphics card) for hours on end that has nothing to do with games or cc's. Just as an example.

600W worth of photogrammetry?

If you're doing it for work, the faster it goes the more money you make. So its not a question of 600w of photogrammetry, but 'how fast can we make it' and the resulting electrical load.

Re: Up to 600 watts of power for graphics cards with the new PCIe 5.0 powerconnector

#29
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ok, this is a tangent, but this kind of stuff irks me. Is there no love anymore for making things pretty enough but actually keeping things efficient? Do game devs (even AAA people) not like the family of things like 0x5F3759DF anymore? Efficiency aside, simply pushing the power requirements doesn't even bring home the bacon. Nintendo's "lateral thinking with withered technology" works super well, just look at the sw…

For a game dev they'd rather release a broken game and start selling sooner than spend time and money polishing it and not selling copies. Gamers don't buy games because the code is performant.

Ok you're explaining a problem though (cyberpunk was definitely a problem) albeit matter of fact, but clearly examples show that lack of performance hurts sales. You're right, people don't buy games because they are performant, they buy them because they are fun, but if your game is so unperformant then it won't be fun...ergo sales sink.

Fewer people by virtue of how expensive 120+Hz equipment (not just the monitors but everything else) can afford that stuff, and if you're limiting your $60 game to just those people that also reduces sales. Again, the logic isn't there, and you won't beat Animal Crossing New Horizons in earnings so even the economics isn't there. The logic is totally wrong.

Re: Up to 600 watts of power for graphics cards with the new PCIe 5.0 powerconnector

#30
post #18
post #10

Assuming you can install two GPUs using 600W, that's basically running a hair dryer in your desktop since most of the energy is converted to heat.

This got me thinking. ( I must be missing something or having wrong assumption in my high overview of the issue. ) Do Crypto People use their GPU generated heat as heater assuming they lives in a place that requires heating anyway? Doesn't that equate to free money assuming they could actually mine crypto?

Heating with a Heat pump or Gas is significantly cheaper, so if you look at the big picture, it’s not “free money”.
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