Wednesday, June 1st 2022
PC Components with High Power Draw an Issue for an Overwhelming Majority of Users: Survey
In April, we polled our readers with the question "Are components with high power draw an issue for you?," and got back 22,040 responses. An overwhelming 85.5 percent of our readers (PC gamers and enthusiasts) take issue with high power draw for PC components. This comes in the wake of key components such as processors and discrete graphics cards rising in power-draw generation-over-generation, despite transitioning to smaller and smaller silicon fabrication nodes, signaling that Moore's Law isn't able to keep up with advances in performance and capabilities. The 85.5 percent of respondents who voted "yes," did so for very diverse reasons.
Our poll question wasn't a binary yes-or-no; and people could vote yes for different reasons—power bill, heat, noise, and the environment. 33.5 percent of respondents felt that power bill (energy costs) is the biggest reason why they chose yes. Heat is the second big factor, with 28.5 percent feeling that they don't want high power-draw component because power has a direct impact on heat, and all that heat is put out into the room despite how good the cooling solution is. The third place goes to noise at 12.2 percent, with bigger cooling requirements having an impact on system noise. Even big fat liquid cooling solutions ultimately rely on fans. Interestingly, only 11.3 percent voted that they care about the environment and hence take issue with high power-draw components. This figure, by the way, is much less than the 14.5 percent who voted that they don't care at all about components with high power draw.Our question took shape as we followed the generation-over-generation power-draw trend of two key components—processors and graphics cards. The GeForce GTX 980 Ti, NVIDIA's fastest consumer graphics card in 2015, drew just 211 W of power under gaming workloads of the time, while the GTX 1080 Ti pulled a similar 231 W to workloads tested in 2017. The RTX 2080 Ti pulled 273 W for gaming of its time in 2018; while the current RTX 3090 Ti draws a whopping 445 W for today's games. These cards were each tested in different system setups, with different driver software and games which is why we can't put the data on a graph, but they still serve to illustrate a generationally rising power-draw. If Moore's Law held true, there should be a generational increase in performance from a new architecture at negligible increase in power, as the silicon will have transitioned to a new node with increased transistor density and improved power characteristics. This, however, isn't happening.
Our poll question wasn't a binary yes-or-no; and people could vote yes for different reasons—power bill, heat, noise, and the environment. 33.5 percent of respondents felt that power bill (energy costs) is the biggest reason why they chose yes. Heat is the second big factor, with 28.5 percent feeling that they don't want high power-draw component because power has a direct impact on heat, and all that heat is put out into the room despite how good the cooling solution is. The third place goes to noise at 12.2 percent, with bigger cooling requirements having an impact on system noise. Even big fat liquid cooling solutions ultimately rely on fans. Interestingly, only 11.3 percent voted that they care about the environment and hence take issue with high power-draw components. This figure, by the way, is much less than the 14.5 percent who voted that they don't care at all about components with high power draw.Our question took shape as we followed the generation-over-generation power-draw trend of two key components—processors and graphics cards. The GeForce GTX 980 Ti, NVIDIA's fastest consumer graphics card in 2015, drew just 211 W of power under gaming workloads of the time, while the GTX 1080 Ti pulled a similar 231 W to workloads tested in 2017. The RTX 2080 Ti pulled 273 W for gaming of its time in 2018; while the current RTX 3090 Ti draws a whopping 445 W for today's games. These cards were each tested in different system setups, with different driver software and games which is why we can't put the data on a graph, but they still serve to illustrate a generationally rising power-draw. If Moore's Law held true, there should be a generational increase in performance from a new architecture at negligible increase in power, as the silicon will have transitioned to a new node with increased transistor density and improved power characteristics. This, however, isn't happening.
150 Comments on PC Components with High Power Draw an Issue for an Overwhelming Majority of Users: Survey
290X's 290w
GTX 980 Ti 250w
GTX 980 165w
Maxwell was a efficient architecture generation Pascal extended it steps further in terms of performance per watt, but at a bit higher TDP envelope. Every generation after has pretty much done similarly except the TDP envelope keeps getting pushed exponentially higher.
Many if not most areas don't have such growth ceilings. At any given point it's feasible to say "nobody needs more than X computing power", but that's a moving target. As more power becomes available, more advanced programs are created to make use of this power, which in turn drives a desire for having more compute power. Couple that with the ludicrous infinite growth ideology of capitalism and you have a surefire recipe for the rebound effect being dominant.
There are gray areas too: cars, for example, has more of a squishy ceiling for how much power the average car has/needs, but some people want tons of power just because they can (even if they only ever drive their Ferrari to the club to show off). But the average power output of a car today is still much, much higher than 30-50 years ago - in part to overcome cars being stuffed with more ... stuff, making them also much heavier, but also in part to make driving more enjoyable. But cars are still an example of rebound effect, as the increase in efficiency has also led to an increase in driving, and in car sales, meaning our fuel consumption has increased massively in the same time period. My main PC is one of those balls-to-the-wall SFF systems, and while I have managed a good balance of performance and noise it took a lot of work and money, sourcing specialized components and configuring things very carefully. While I really like the system and plan to keep it in service for at least half a decade, I'm increasingly leaning towards moderation being an overall better approach. If I were to build a system from scratch today, I'd be going for a smaller case with a more moderate setup - something like a Densium 4+ with an RX 6600 or similar. To me, that's where the ideal balance lies - small, simple air cooled setups with minimal fuss.
Even if i had the cash to piss up the wall, i don't think i would even want a 3090/ti, it would mean a expensive WB on top of the cost, and having my loop try and deal with the 400/450w it would make, which is probably double my 1080ti. And screw cooling one of them on air, nice blowing all that heat into the case, which my setup does not. Not forgetting America with its love of cars with hugely stupid gas guzzling 5 litre+ engines.
Here is where the good ones are really set apart from the bad ones. There is nothing wrong with big engines when being properly fed, that is not pouring liquid into them (CO2 is the basis for photosynthesis, by the way).
And i answered you in that thread as well: Because i care about the most performance per watt. Simple efficiency.
Nothing is as efficient as an undervolted 3090, giving the most performance per watt.
Nothing is more efficient than a 5800x for low threaded tasks
My RTX 3090 + 5800x 4k gaming setup (4k 72hz or 1440p 165hz, depending which screen i use) uses 300W of power, monitor included.
Heres 10 hours of Hwinfo to back that up, as measured by the UPS (which includes tower, primary monitor, and a google mesh wifi router)
(Scribbled out the min/average/current values for simplicity, since the headers were off-screen)
And of course i f*cked up and closed the window instead of minimizing, so i lost the specific values from the CPU and GPU (220W for the 3090 vs 350W stock)
You don't necessarily have to hammer it.
Plus wtaf did people expect with Ray tracing, that's a whole shit load of power required to make good god rays and mirrors.
There was a good reason for pre baked lighting.
You're basically saying you care not for cost harm or damage, as long as it's not YOU paying.
I have paid believe me to be on this planet, in pain and suffering as a child, i have paid my dues. I do not drive so do not pollute like most drivers do. Would you give up your car and use a EV or Cycle to work if you could? thousands probably could but will not because they love their cars too much. Look at the people clogging roads up sat there in their cars in a jam, how many do you think turn the motor off while sat there.
The only people that matter to me now is me and my partner, who i am full time carer for, and believe me it is not easy sometimes, and it is a no rest thing, i don't get off at the weekend. Think of me wht you like, i don't give a rats, thinking bad of me does not hurt as much as a punch or getting whipped with electric cord by your father.
Doing so is slightly soul destroying IF you do indeed try and limit your own footprint, as many do.
Seeing the energy, packaging, and pollution put out by your own workplace can seriously upset your senses.
I've seen a 2£ cable in two cable ties two bags and a box many times.
The lights on eternally and machines with no job to do daily just occasionally left running for years.
And then you have countries building multiple whole cities, not for people to live in, but just to invest in(China).
Yet it's always Joe public on the end of the pointy finger.
I don't disagree with what I think you believe, we should all try to be reasonable with power use, and I agree.
But it does frustrate me how public sided the arguments are, never bringing in the big players due to them hiding behind bullshit like ESG scores.
@Tigger play fair please, it's easy to point the finger at drivers if you work in home as you do, my works 30 miles away, so yeah for now car's are key for me despite me not being All about me , I do have little choice.
Encouraging personal responsibility is all well and good up until the point where it starts making people's already difficult lives already more difficult, at which point all you're doing is shitting on people's struggles and sowing division and entrenched BS enmity. Calls for individual responsibility should always be preceded by directing demands at those with the most resources and power first.
mother nature will have the last word, rather arrogant for humans to think otherwise.
personally i blame Bic's marketing of disposable lighter in the 1970s; since then it seems people think more and more that everything is disposable, making it someone else's problem. spilled over to packaging.
and i'll stop my rant there. :D
This is why planting trees is so important today.
But a lot of what you said is the crux of capitalism and liberal ideology, even the most hard core liberal will agree that a company polluting a lake or stream for a but more profit is evil and they should be forced to bear the responsibility as a group. However, if it's not easy people won't do it, that is a fact for 99 percent of people which is also how we have a 1 percent.
Correctly using incentives and tax deductions would be the preferred way to encourage compliance with a mandate from the masses. Unfortunately we all seem to have fudal lords who are only concerned with their well being and not the masses they have pledged to serve. They want us to be divided and to not listen, as they can gain control by pushing tribalism.
A) So hot, it's hot to trot... ("like a trailer park ho")
B) Stack it high & let it fry....
C) Heat it, street it, and three-peet it....
D) Feel da burn, or burn da feel....
E) Powa is as powa does....
F) Absolute power corrupts absolutely....
G) It it fries, it flys...
hahahahaha...I drive a 1969 Chevy Camaro every chance I can in the summer...I have to offset some Prius'
because, i living alone and i dont have money to buy that things.... so, its cool.......
Oh, and regarding the pollution-responsibility thing: don't discount the willful blindness of the religion/libertarianism mix, which holds a near infinite amount of mechanisms for divesting those in power from the responsibilities of their actions. Either it's your god-given right to use the bountiful resources of the earth, or you have a moral right to always try to better your position in the world (while fervently denying the existence of or reliance upon anything resembling an interconnected large-scale society or environment). This is why politics is needed to address this, and why individualizing responsibility is useless: people can always concoct their own get-of-of-jail-free cards. Yeah, that seems to be the way most places are moving for now. It's almost as if spending half a century concentrating wealth and power in the hands of a few people might not be the best idea, or the one most conducive to societal freedom and prosperity? :rolleyes: Though I'm a bit dubious on incentives and tax deductions alone - penalties are needed too; bad actions need harsh consequences. And of course you need effective enforcement for this to work (which then necessitates closing the revolving door between industry and regulation).
Sigh.