Comments on: Nvidia, AMD gaming graphics buck green-PC trend

The chipmakers offer really fast graphics boards for enthusiast game PCs--and the result is new boxes that can literally blow a fuse.

[ddesy]

A little fact checking first, please?

A recommendation of a 1200 watt power supply does not mean, as the article says, that they "draw 1,200 watts." A power supply is generally recommended with some headroom. Add to this the fact that even as the picture at the top shows many power supplies are now "80 plus" certified, meaning that they are 80% efficient or better.

Also, the G4 was not what caused Apple to abandon the PowerPC platform. It actually ended up quite power efficient as evidenced by just how little power a G4 based Mac mini draws. The problem was the G5.

[sniperdoc]

OMG, I don't even know where to start on this piece of "news". It is very apparent that the title and general gist have SOME element of truth to them. But, the actual "techy" aspects of the post don't hold.

First off, by no means are 1KW PSU's required, nor are they mainstream for people that know what they're doing. When I first built my X6800 with a 680i, two Raptors, and an 8800GTX (with hopes of maybe SLIing in the future), I thought I'd need a 1KW Power Supply. Nothing was further from the truth. Because I had purchased a 1500W APC BackupUPS with a nifty front panel display showing me how much my draw was, I saw that I wasn't even tapping 400W when my system was just browsing web pages and maybe 450 when gaming.

Secondly, I have had the chance to upgrade to a GTX280 and was able to borrow another GTX280 from work. As far as nVidia not going green... nothing is further from the truth. The GTX280 will actually DOWNCLOCK itself when in 2D mode and draws about half the power. Most games run great with a second video card, but the cost really doesn't justify the change in frames/sec to me since after 32fps the human eye can't discern a difference. I was drawing less than 500W when running my system in SLI with a game running.

The trend in the Enthusiast market is not about the wattage anymore. It's whether the 12V rails on your system have enough amperage to run the graphics adapter. Given that cards require 32+A nowadays, that makes it seem like the system needs a 1500W PSU, but people need to keep in mind, that you're not drawing 1500W's while that PC is on. You're only drawing as much as the system needs.

So all in all, I guess the general jist of this story is ok, but definitely used extremes to justify the content and moral of the story and making nVidia and AMD look like the evil twins upsetting the climate and inducing Global Warming x2.

[sanenazok]

1200 watts is not that much power. On a 110V circuit it is 12 Amps. Even for old electrical installations your house has 60+ Amps available. Given the price of these computers it's not likely that you'll have more than one. So if you're electrical wiring can't handle this then you have other problems and probably should invest in the wiring before wasting money on a gaming rig.

[strongbad71]

Your house may have 60 or even 150 Amps available to the whole house, but the individual circuit supplying the PC will only have 10 or 15 Amps on the breaker - depends on the gauge of wire used. And if you have other devices on that same circuit, like lamps and a monitor, then you headroom will drop even more. So drawing 12 Amps will potentially trip a circuit breaker in some people's houses.

[darnefnet]

You may have 60 amps total but the circuit your computer is plugged into is likely on 15 or 20 amps. Also multiple outlets share the same circuit so if you had say a printer or another system on the same circuit you would start blowing breakers

[timber2005]

Consider though, if you're computer is pulling 12 amps on a 15 amp receptical circut (and very rarely are 20amp circuts), you can't place much more on the same circut. A CRT monitor would be enough to overload the breaker.

But really that would only happen if you've actually gotten it to pull a full 12 amps.

[Philips]

"Nvidia also offers hybrid graphics technology that turns off all the power-sucking boards when they're not in use"

ATI also need something like that for their 4870 X2 because in idle it's drawing twice the power of single 4870, meaning that other core isn't really properly idling.

This is actually why I'm reluctant to perform video card upgrade now: nVidia is too expensive; ATI is too power consuming; but both consume way too much power even in idle.

[skrubol]

I've never seen this to be the case in reviews. One I pulled up quickly showed the GTX280 idling at 125 watts, 4870 at 151 watts, and 4870x2 at 175 watts (2x 4870's Idled at 230 watts.) Other reviews I've seen showed similar results.
It is unfortunate that AMD/ATI couldn't get the idle power lower on these cards, but the x2 isn't a problem compared to the rest of the line. The X2 uses less power at idle and at load than 2x 4870's and it also generally outperforms them.

[ddesy]

Sniperdoc,

I think you will find that many people, myself included, would disagree that "after 32fps the human eye can't discern a difference. "

Considering the fact that a 60 Hz flicker is often visible to me, I would say that I can see more than 32 Hz. You're right that it isn't really worth the cost, but I wouldn't be so quick to say that the difference is not visible.

[Art Dir]

When you watch movies do they appear to be running slightly in slow motion, stutter, or occasionally flash still frames? Does everyone around you seem to be moving a little in slow motion? Have you noticed that your reflexes are a little faster than others? Do others find it difficult to keep up with you? If you can perceive more than 30-32 frames a second, than that is the effect you will begin to experience. In fact, it isn't only the number of frames in a movie or video game humans can perceive, that's the way we experience our lives. Our brains don't take in a fluid, non-interrupted stream of sense data. We perceive the world and our lives in sensory "snap shots" that usually happen at about 30-32 "shots" a second. That's why we see up to 32 frames of moving pictures a second, it's not coincidence, it's that our brains function at that rate. In life threatening situations adrenaline can up our rate of perceptual "snap shots" per second; that's why a "flight or flight" response may make things seem to run in slow motion. The ability to perceive the world at a faster rate than usual in times of crisis is evolutions equivalent of a shot of nitric oxide in an engine to let our brain and muscles work faster when lions were trying to eat us naked apes (or the modern equivalent experience).

Do you live in a constant state of danger? Ever been exposed to high doses of gamma rays and subsequently become more muscular and display a shift in hue towards more greenish skin tones when angered? Maybe you just need to switch to decaf ;-)

[Lerianis]

Yeah.... it's more like 62fps where the medical community says the human eye cannot discern a difference anymore.

[DigitalFrog]

sanenazok "1200 watts is not that much power. On a 110V circuit it is 12 Amps. Even for old electrical installations your house has 60+ Amps available. "

That's great if you are plugging your PC directly into your house's service feed, but the standard household circuit normally has a 15amp breaker. If you have a printer, monitor, and lamp plugged into the same circuit, you will be tripping the breaker.

[sanenazok]

Sure if you're using everything at once at full capacity. Doing a lot of laser printouts while playing a FPS are we? My point is that the "power" problem is being overstated.

[morlamweb]

@sanenazok: The reason that you buy/build a system with 2+ GPUs is to run it at FULL CAPACITY. And when the system is being used to the limit as during a recent game, it WILL a lot of power - enough to operate all of the parts in the PC, plus some extra watts to compensate for the loss due to the conversion from AC to DC power. That could be 1000 watts or more if you have a fully-loaded system as described in the article.

[Lerianis]

Really, there is no reason for all these 'mega-power' needs for these computers. I can run Hell-Gate: London with EVERYTHING turned up to the max, and Crysis at the High settings no problem on my new Gateway P-7811FX system.
I've tested it with a 'power-consumption' module that goes between the computer cord and the wall outlet..... 500Watts. at PEAK draw..... which it doesn't stay at for very long, even while heavily gaming or heavily video editing.

To be blunt..... these '2 or 3 card' solutions are NOT necessary, when a human eye cannot tell the difference between 60fps and 120fps.

[Zaunto]

I'm personally stopping at a 500 Watt PSU. I can run everything from my current Sapphire HD Radeon 2600PRO that doesn't require a PCI-e power connector, to the ATI HD Radeon 4870 If I choose. Professional gamers who are sponsored can justify the expensive of outrageously powered PSU's and the PC's that use them, but in my opinion, if you require a commercial grade breaker just to run your PC for gaming, you had better be pulling in some extra doe to pay for the power bill. I'm all for more power to a certain point, but there has to be some point beyond which, it's pointless and too expensive to bother with it.

[donovan1983]

Like a poster above noted, the PowerPC G4 was not the chip that caused Apple to abandon the PowerPC platform. The G4 is an amazingly efficient and low-power CPU. My old iBook G4 can run for literally 5 hours on a single charge with WiFi on for web browsing use. The power supply for the thing is only rated for 45 watts. But the architecture just could not be scaled to higher clock speeds, and the IBM PowerPC 970 (G5) competed with the early Pentium 4 chips for just how power-hungry and hot a CPU could run. And it still didn't scale very well.

I really think that gaming machines like the ones described in this article are just absurd. Nobody needs 2, 3, or 4 video cards in a single machine or a machine that has the potential to compete with your microwave or space heater for power draw. These machines can add $30 or more to an electric bill by themselves. And you can bet that these machines are still drawing obscene amounts of power even when just used for web surfing since there are so many more power-hungry components that are running, even if they are close to idle. And what's worse is that in a year's time a machine with a single card drawing far less power will be besting these monsters in performance.

[Dr_Zinj]

I put an nVidia 9800 in the last system I built specifically for gaming Everquest 2. I put a 500W PSU in it and have never hit the wall with it; even when running the game in a raid, couple of browsers open, a spreadsheet, e-mail, and, a powerpoint presentation from work.

[Lew_Zealand]

Please validate facts on the internet first next time, it's not hard to do. The dual processor G4s came out in 2000 and the version of the G4 case which was given the Wind Tunnel nickname came out in 2002, 2 case versions after the original dual processor G4s, and Apple redesigned the power supply (ie: spent the $$ this time for better fans) to be quieter after people complained. Neither of these dates is 2001 and in fact Apple *first* offered dual processor consumer machines in 1997. Apparently heat wasn't a problem at any time and I'd like to see a link to heat-related failures for a Dual G4 machine at a higher rate than any other machine.

I didn't even bother to finish the article as it started with such misinformation. If I want graphic card news, I'll go to Anandtech or Tom's.

[fdunn3]

As was pointed out by previous posts, just because you have an 800-1KW Power supply does not mean you are constantly drawing anywhere near that much power on a "good" gaming system.

Now if you go with 4 GPUs then your average draw will be considerably higher but I am not one of the crowd that thinks more is better. Get a GPU with a wide memory bus an average (~700MHz) GPU clock combined with some DDR3 or DDR4 and I am happy.

Of course you'll also want multiple disks on RAID and a "Real" hardware raid solution but 650-750 would more than take care of that. The idea of having higher rated power supplies is rooted in transient power draw as in those times that your transient (milliseconds at most) can spike up higher and unless you have either the power supply that can handle it or some really high grade High capacitance output capacitors on that rail (another issue driving power up, the need for more 12V HI current rails) then you stand to Blue Screen, hang, or some other bad artifact.

Even throwing more memory at a fast processor bus (capacitive reactance * Frequency = Current) draws more current.

On the other end of the scale are the OEM Systems from the major manufacturers that put just enough power in the box that you really can't add anything to it without upgrading the Power supply and not all of them are running 80+ or 90+ efficiency supplies so their idle draw is higher.