Power draw, who cares...

staknhalo said:
Also more heat means more goes into cooling which means fans spin up more/more often (if air cooling) which means more noise and more dust drawn into case.
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You mean I have a compressor line at the work bench for no reason at all if I'd just back off on the heat? ;)
 
I only run a 650W PSU on my system and I don't have any intention of upgrading that any time soon. Another thing is, I've also built my PC to be as quiet as possible and heat is also a concern so yes, power consumption does matter to me. Choosing the most efficient components gives me the highest performance in my situation.
 
I don't give a crap. Got a 1300 W G2. I don't think I will have issues with power anytime soon.
 
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I care about power draw because a lot of the power ends up as excess heat which leads to needing noisy fans and I don't like noisy fans much. And yeah I have a 450W SFX power supply :D It happens to be 80 Plus gold rated. I considered a 600W mainly for the Platinum rating. No idea what I would shove in my case that would actually need that kind of power. Most people I see have power supplies that are complete overkill/oversized for the parts they run. Size the PSU appropriately and it runs at its highest efficiency (this tends to be less true now as 80 Plus rated supplies are fairly efficient at a wide range of loads) which also leads to less heat.
 
Araxie said:
Everything depend, Power Draw is important to me up to some degree and it's related to cooling, I DO care a lot of heat produced and expelled inside and out of my case, I re-balance the airflow of my case with each new/different GPU used and unless someone is using full water and AIO mods, more power draw on a GPU mean more heat pumped inside the case making overall components hotter, specially those surrounding the GPU, crucially the PCI-E Bracket which become HOT, Hotter CPU temps, Hotter RAM temps, Hotter Chipset, Mobo VRM, etc matters to me as it can have a negative effect over my CPU and RAM Overclocks, so if you put me 2 cards that perform 10% one of each other one pulling 250W and the other 300W I will pick of course the 250W one as I tend to overclock the GPU as much as possible, and there power matters is not the same overclocking a 250W card to the realm of 300W - 350W than other 300W to the realm of over 450W for less performance which is always the case scenario of Nvidia vs AMD cards, I tend to run my single GPU machines with 600W - 750W Gold/Platinum PSUs a single GPU pulling 400W+ alone from that is an issue to me as it mean even more investment on PSUs to keep efficiency numbers at the 80% load range.

my first metric for a GPU is performance and second is cooling so yes, power draws matter to me and for everyone I recommend a "new" GPU as normally those kind of guys are careless with choice of cases, airflow and cooling they just want plug and play. yeah that's the "typical" gamer.
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Wtf. Youre in the wrong platform, save your self the trouble and go console.

Anyone who puts performance as number 1 on their list would run a custom loop or not give a **** about heat.

Reminds me of those guys that build a drag car and cry about fuel consumption.

Many years ago i had first full HD Acer 37" tv in my tiny room and dual gpu amd card that thing was like a heater. During aussie summer my balls used to drip in sweat . It didnt stop me from grinding 12hours a day or playing games haha thats what it means to put perdormance at frist place.
 
Pasic said:
Anyone who puts performance as number 1 on their list would run a custom loop or not give a **** about heat.
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The heat isn't removed is it.

Pasic said:
Many years ago i had first full HD Acer 37" tv in my tiny room and dual gpu amd card that thing was like a heater. During aussie summer my balls used to drip in sweat . It didnt stop me from grinding 12hours a day or playing games haha thats what it means to put perdormance at frist place.
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There is a balance where you can almost reach both. Top performance without the sauna.
 
lostinseganet said:
Power draw matters when you OC the wires in your house. :)
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Seriously. I have to consider how much stuff I have on each circuit sometimes. On at least one circuit I can't turn all the devices on it on at once or the breaker trips.... 15A x 120v = only 1800W per circuit before needing to move to wiring/outlets that will support 20A or more or adding more circuits.
 
Well, personally, for my ITX build I'll be cooling the entire system with a 200mm radiator.... Keeping the case to around 240mm square.

So, draw matters a lot to me, really.
 
auntjemima said:
Am I the only one that doesn't give two fucks about power draw? It's constantly mentioned here. Company X has comparable performance to Company Y! Finally!... Oh, wait.. it uses some more megawatts.

Really? I could see for miners, it's a concern. That makes sense based on ROI, but for gamers, especially ones that are planning on buying the top of the line cards, who cares? Are you guys all running 450w power supplies or something?
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Well, I care enough that when I had an FX 8300 overclocked with 2 x R9 Furies Non X cards, I needed to upgrade to a 1KW power supply. Now, I am on a R7 1700X with the same cards so I am not so concerned about power draw anymore. :D
 
If you live in a cooler climate, the extra power draw of your PC is a benefit as it leads to heating. If your rig outputs considerable heat, you can even forgo turning on a heater, at which point, it's a pure win-win situation.

If you live in a warmer climate, it's the reverse. That extra heat output matters, it makes your room hotter, and if bad enough, requires running AC which is added cost.

This is often why you see such a split in opinions regarding power usage IMO, it's down to how individuals view the pros & cons.

Things such as noise, GPU thermals and such, are entirely separate from the power usage of the GPU itself and it's reliant on the cooling design. There's no such thing as "all else being equal" since there's so many different coolers for different models & brands.

The 290X for example, can run hot & loud, or cool & quiet, depending on the model.
 
When I made less money and I had an overclocked Q6600 processor...yes I cared. That beast heated up the second floor near 7 degrees, and it sucked in summer. My next PC used a QX9650 a more efficient power supply and everything supported full power management. Dropped near 120 watts off idle and about the same at full load. Dropped my electric bill by $8 a month as well.

Right now I run a beastly Z620 with 12 cores/ 24 threads. It's like driving around in a mack truck and it pumps out a fair amount of heat. Only reason I have it is I purchased it for 90% off. It still doesn't compare to that Q6000 based system though, that thing was a space heater.
 
I'll spend an extra $20 or so on a card (if need be) of comparable performance vs. another if it's more efficient. Less heat output, noise, and the small tiny voice in my head saying I gave Miami one more hour of existence before succumbing to rising ocean waters are reasons enough for me to get a more efficient card.
 
It matters to me.
I am staying on a warm location with constant above 85 (some days coming to 95 recently) so the extra heat and power matters because it meant I need to run more AC power too in my study room, not to mention electricity cost is going up.
 
Bahanime said:
If you live in a cooler climate, the extra power draw of your PC is a benefit as it leads to heating. If your rig outputs considerable heat, you can even forgo turning on a heater, at which point, it's a pure win-win situation.

If you live in a warmer climate, it's the reverse. That extra heat output matters, it makes your room hotter, and if bad enough, requires running AC which is added cost.
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My wife's and my twin computer systems keep us very nice and warm during the winter here (outside temperatures barely go below 0 F and the house doesn't drop too far in temperature). But in summer it gets above 90 to 100 F and the house warms up very fast when both of our systems are on. You can always put something else on to try to keep warm. There's only so much you can take off before the neighbors complain. :ROFLMAO:
 
dholcombe said:
Seriously. I have to consider how much stuff I have on each circuit sometimes. On at least one circuit I can't turn all the devices on it on at once or the breaker trips.... 15A x 120v = only 1800W per circuit before needing to move to wiring/outlets that will support 20A or more or adding more circuits.
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I feel for people living in 120V land...
 
Factum said:
I feel for people living in 120V land...
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You don't need to, we have 240 V in our homes as well and the ability to run the same total wattage as other places. It just requires planning because the smallest circuit is 15amps at 120v which was decided on over a century ago when the biggest things they had to worry about were lightbulbs.

The most common two ways to defeat that small circuit are to run split receptacles where the top and bottom of the receptacle each get their own 15 amps to deal with or lately the more common solution is just to run 20 amp circuits.

Where people struggle is in rental homes and apartment buildings where they can't just arbitrarily change the wiring to meet their needs. But that's true everywhere.
 
After seeing a majority of these replies, I feel like the only people who DON'T care about power usage/power consumption/power efficiency are the people who just don't want it used as a metric; because their team isn't good at it :dead:
 
staknhalo said:
After seeing a majority of these replies, I feel like the only people who DON'T care about power usage/power consumption/power efficiency are the people who just don't want it used as a metric; because their team isn't good at it :dead:
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Use it all you want, it will not change my stand. My use of an air-conditioned case has not a damn thing to do with bias nor has it ever. I like being able to run my OCs 24/7/365 and the negation of dust is an absolute godsend. Besides my ability to pay my bills means I can do as I wish and use as much as I want. And I do not feel the need to take jabs at those that don't to make my little life has some sort of meaning.
 
auntjemima said:
I should have prefaced this with I run an Nvidia card, I have never used an ATI card either. That said, if AMD can make a comparable card for GAMING who cares what it's doing inside that little case as long as heat doesn't become a concern?
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Well that's the whole issue - heat becomes problem. GTX 470 showed me that clearly when I couldn't play on my pc due to heat outside when I runned "energy efficient" combo of Phenom II X6 and gtx470 few years ago.
 
JustReason said:
Use it all you want, it will not change my stand. My use of an air-conditioned case has not a damn thing to do with bias nor has it ever. I like being able to run my OCs 24/7/365 and the negation of dust is an absolute godsend. Besides my ability to pay my bills means I can do as I wish and use as much as I want. And I do not feel the need to take jabs at those that don't to make my little life has some sort of meaning.
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Yes, yes, your post reeks of 'not giving a damn/not feeling the need to'. Reeks of it :ROFLMAO:
 
staknhalo said:
After seeing a majority of these replies, I feel like the only people who DON'T care about power usage/power consumption/power efficiency are the people who just don't want it used as a metric; because their team isn't good at it :dead:
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I give a f*(& on mining, , on the kids gaming rigs I could care less.
 
I could care less about 250 watts vs 200, or whatever it may be.

mGPU I might care... but to hell with mGPU for other reasons.

I buy nVidia because I can make games, particularly World of Warships, look way better by forcing SGSSAA. I'd buy nVidia even if it was double the power usage of AMD. Also VR.
 
It's not so much the power consumption that concerns me.

What is concerning is that, as of lately, AMD has been shipping graphic cards that are running at their maximum clocks, while NVIDIA has been shipping graphic cards that have room to spare for overclocking.

Now, if I am buying a graphic card, why wouldn't I buy one with room to spare for overclocking? ...unless, of cause, the other one is significantly cheaper.
 
The only times I actually care about power is:

1. If my PSU isn't able to handle it, which only happened once when I had to replace a 850W PSU with a 650W, didn't want to spend too much money on another 850W unit in case it wasn't the issue of PSU, which turned out it was. 650W merely prevented me from running SLI again, so no huge loss there.

2. Choosing between a 75W and a 125W GPU purely on the ground of whether or not I want to route a PSU cable to the GPU (ITX build). Still undecided.

Other than that I don't particularly care about the exact power draw unless the performance is close enough that power is the only distinguishing feature. In the times I was in the market for a GPU, nVidia has won that one (except possibly 570, was I had someone else spec that computer for me).

I was personally more worried about the RX480 drawing more power than its specification allowed rather than the fact that it drew more than 150W specifically, for example.
 
Simplyfun said:
You don't need to, we have 240 V in our homes as well and the ability to run the same total wattage as other places. It just requires planning because the smallest circuit is 15amps at 120v which was decided on over a century ago when the biggest things they had to worry about were lightbulbs.

The most common two ways to defeat that small circuit are to run split receptacles where the top and bottom of the receptacle each get their own 15 amps to deal with or lately the more common solution is just to run 20 amp circuits.

Where people struggle is in rental homes and apartment buildings where they can't just arbitrarily change the wiring to meet their needs. But that's true everywhere.
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I now feel even more for people in 117V'ish land....all the hoops you have to do to get infrastructure anno the 21st century...
 
Power draw didn't directly factor into me replacing my 390 what with a completely overkill gold-rated power supply, but the fan noise from that thing got really annoying after awhile. Running at 75%+ while pumping 90C heat didn't really work for me. If the power draw was lower and I could've run the fans at 50% I probably wouldn't have bothered switching. Benching the 1070 with the fans completely inaudible sure was a game-changer though.

The fan in the PSU already barely ever turned on before and I don't think it's spun up once since installing the new card.
 
High power draw = lower clock headroom. Not to mention high power draw = costlier cooling solutions = higher price/lower margins. There has to be at least a 10-20% price difference between Vega and its competitor in its tier for people to even start considering it. Lower margins + HBM2 = ???.

If Vega 10 is already maxed out from the beginning, how much will Navi/Vega 20 be able to improve up on it?

Let's say they achieve improvement parity with Volta and gain 50% perf/watt improvement. That'll still put it at 1080Ti level in 2K/4K gaming, which is equivalent to Volta's x70/x80 cards. And Vega 20 looks to be around late 2018/early 2019, which is roughly a year after Volta.

Now assuming they manage to get Navi/Vega 20 onto 7nm, resulting in a 50% perf/watt improvement AND manages a 50% improvement in perf/watt from uarch changes, that puts it on par with Volta. The problem is, they'll be on a more advanced node compared to Volta on 14nm. Again, more expensive, more risks and more susceptible to delays. Also, 1 year late and more expensive to manufacture.
 
Noisy fans people - meet large diameter sleeve bearing or mag bearing low noise fans. You can have your cake and eat it.
I run dual 180mm sleeve bearing fans at 750-800rpm and I can't hear my PC over the fridge in the kitchen, spinning rust is the loudest thing and it's in a steel case. It's also just enough flow to run a 2600k with decent volts passive on a decade old Scythe Ninja rev1 and not throttle.
If I can manage that with an ancient 90s double sided case, then you might want to rethink your air flow and case design...

Also where I live it's cold in winter and pretty warm in summer. With good room ventilation I don't need AC and can game.
In winter, it just heats the room up.

I guess if you live in a desert, it's a different story. Ever thought about ducted heat extraction for your PC, or some sort of outdoor cover/operation?


trandoanhung1991 said:
Now assuming they manage to get Navi/Vega 20 onto 7nm, resulting in a 50% perf/watt improvement AND manages a 50% improvement in perf/watt from uarch changes, that puts it on par with Volta. The problem is, they'll be on a more advanced node compared to Volta on 14nm. Again, more expensive, more risks and more susceptible to delays. Also, 1 year late and more expensive to manufacture.
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I'd assume at this point with MSI comments etc they're aiming for OC Ti or better performance with top part. Tall order hence the high thermal dissipation, but no different to a high OC 1080Ti power usage.... this make sense considering MSI who is an accurate source.

GF has so far had pretty good news about 7nm processes and they're already looking at 5nm with IBM, which I think speaks volumes. Perhaps this time they will have their shit sorted and AMD with a new uarch will be competitive across the board. GCN is an old donkey that needs to die now - Vega is the last clawing spectre, as it falls to the void of obsolescence.
 
For my video cards, I really don't care about power draw. I just want something that plays the games I want to play at maximum settings at 144fps.

Really the only place I care about power draw is my server.
 
I think the idea is to continually improve efficiency along with performance so that you don't need to upgrade your PSU as often or can use a smaller PSU and the tech will work with smaller form factors like HTPC boxes, consoles, mobile.
 
N4CR said:
Noisy fans people - meet large diameter sleeve bearing or mag bearing low noise fans. You can have your cake and eat it.
I run dual 180mm sleeve bearing fans at 750-800rpm and I can't hear my PC over the fridge in the kitchen, spinning rust is the loudest thing and it's in a steel case. It's also just enough flow to run a 2600k with decent volts passive on a decade old Scythe Ninja rev1 and not throttle.
If I can manage that with an ancient 90s double sided case, then you might want to rethink your air flow and case design...

Also where I live it's cold in winter and pretty warm in summer. With good room ventilation I don't need AC and can game.
In winter, it just heats the room up.

I guess if you live in a desert, it's a different story. Ever thought about ducted heat extraction for your PC, or some sort of outdoor cover/operation?
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Well yeah, while I'll avoid sleeve bearing fans whenever possible I do go for quiet but high-MTBF fans. All of my case fans are AP15's on a controller and the CPU is cooled with an HR-02 and a Sanyo Denki H1011 at 7V, so usually the only thing I'm hearing is the hard drives. That all got rendered moot with the 390 spun up though since it was that much louder than anything else.
 
grumperfish said:
Well yeah, while I'll avoid sleeve bearing fans whenever possible I do go for quiet but high-MTBF fans. All of my case fans are AP15's on a controller and the CPU is cooled with an HR-02 and a Sanyo Denki H1011 at 7V, so usually the only thing I'm hearing is the hard drives. That all got rendered moot with the 390 spun up though since it was that much louder than anything else.
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Odd you would buy a 390 when you value silence.
I had a 290x (290 bios flashed to a 290x) and had to put an Accelero Xtreme III cooler on it because the noise was ridiculous.
Breath of fresh air, literally!
 
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