Looks like PC power efficiency does mean something

5150Joker

5150Joker

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A lot of gamers dismiss the impact of the power footprint PC gaming has but check out this article from Hexus where it states:

In a new report from Berkeley Lab it is estimated that the world's gaming PCs will be responsible for draining the power from 50 standard 500-megawatt power plants by 2020. That's 50 Rosenfelds, fact fans. However, even now in 2015, it would be possible for the average power consumption of gaming PCs to fall by 75 per cent "by changing some settings and swapping out some components, while also improving reliability and performance," according to the research.
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They increased their power efficiency quite a bit by tossing in NVIDIA Maxwell + G-Sync components.

Source: http://hexus.net/gaming/news/pc/85997-worlds-gaming-pcs-require-50-dedicated-power-stations-2020/
Original article: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12053-015-9371-1#page-1

While gaming PCs represent only 2.5 % of the global installed PC equipment base, our initial scoping estimate suggests that gaming PCs consumed 75 TWh/year ($10 billion) of electricity globally in 2012 or approximately 20 % of total PC, notebook, and console energy usage. Based on projected changes in the installed base, we estimate that consumption will more than double by the year 2020 if the current rate of equipment sales is unabated and efficiencies are not improved. Although they will represent only 10 % of the installed base of gaming platforms in 2020, relatively high unit energy consumption and high hours of use will result in gaming computers being responsible for 40 % of gaming energy use. Savings of more than 75 % can be achieved via premium efficiency components applied at the time of manufacture or via retrofit, while improving reliability and performance (nearly a doubling of performance per unit of energy). This corresponds to a potential savings of approximately 120 TWh/year or $18 billion/year globally by 2020
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Yeah, and they are going to fully upgrade my computer out of the kindness of their hearts too, right? Right? ;) Did they factor in the cost of the components themselves for the customer and how often they will be upgraded? Oh, and I just remembered and realized, who is going to downgrade their 4790k or FX 8350 to a dual core processor?
 
5150Joker said:
A lot of gamers dismiss the impact of the power footprint PC gaming has but check out this article from Hexus where it states:
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Do you know who dismissed gpu efficiency? Nvidia fanboys when AMD was more efficient. As they dismissed overclocking ability.
 
And if all pc gamers started replacing their perfectly fine components just for the sake of efficiency, then what? Their old hardware wouldn't be recycled. Most likely sold and continued to be used by someone else. Making this argument completely dumb. But even if you'd assume for the sake of argument that I'd replace my two 290x graphics cards with something less power hungry, and put these to the bin (LOL) then what we would get? Tons of waste. And the replacement doesn't grow on trees either. Manufacturing hardware does have a footprint as well.

If you're concerned with nature, the best thing you can do is:

Keep using your current hardware for as long as possible

And on a broader scale this applies to every appliance including your car. By replacing your 10mpg car with a brand new 20mpg car, you're making a larger impact on the world's ecosystem than by driving your "wasteful car" until it actually needs replacing.

Do think before getting on the hype train of manufacturers. They'Re pushing greenness so you keep buying new things, not to save the planet. And to save the planet you actually need to stop buying new things needlessly.
 
5150Joker said:
They increased their power efficiency quite a bit by tossing in NVIDIA components.
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And by tossing out Nvidia components... :D

Seriously though, this thread belongs at best in the general hardware section since they changed about everything including monitor, though its so flawed that it doesnt belong anywhere on [H]. "Gaming test" is Unigine Heaven benchmark for christ sake. Here is the base system they used:

Fig. 12 Measured power and energy use for each mode of operation.
The active gaming value is an average observed during the
benchmark trials described below, with adjustments to reflect an
80 % efficient PSU and 1.4 GPUs (average in use). Components:
PSU (Seasonic G Series, 550 W), CPU (Intel Core i7
4820 K—quad core, 3.7 base GHz), GPU (NVIDIA Reference
Geforce GTX 780, 900 MHz boost), motherboard (ASUS P9X79-
E WS), RAM (32GB (8×4 GB) Kingston HyperX Beast
1866 MHz, 1.65 V), display (Apple HD Cinema, 23 in.). Operating
system: Windows 7 Professional 64 bit; BPower saver^ energy
management settings in Windows 7 OS. Operating hours: active
gaming (Open Gaming Alliance 2015), Web browsing and video
streaming (Short 2013), idle from Urban et al. (2014), and off/
sleep is residual divided equally. Assumes one display
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Linky to the PDF

Why on earth would you post this under video cards?
 
Thats great!!!! We knew this A LONGGGGG TIME AGO when the 480 GTX was released.

This isn't anything new at all.

Thanks for the reminder Joker!
 
What reason is there to build a more power-efficient PC outside of saving $5 a year on the power bill?

I'm sure the answer would have something to do with the well-debunked idea that global warming is caused by humans. :rolleyes:
 
DASHlT said:
Thats great!!!! We knew this A LONGGGGG TIME AGO when the 480 GTX was released.
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Somebody probably should have told AMD, because they are still making power sucking video cards like it's 5 years ago. What's worse is they can't even get the performance crown at the same time.
 
PRIME1 said:
Somebody probably should have told AMD, because they are still making power sucking video cards like it's Nvidia 5 years ago. What's worse is they can't even get the performance crown at the same time.
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FTFY
 
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cocdod said:
What reason is there to build a more power-efficient PC outside of saving $5 a year on the power bill?
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For me just heat and noise and I'd like to make my box as small as possible too.

But in terms of nvidia's strategy to focus on power-efficiency... it's obvious why they have to do this. They want to remain relevant in laptops against Intel, and power efficiency is really important in HPC, and finally at the time they were still targeting the mobile market with Tegra.
 
M76 said:
And if all pc gamers started replacing their perfectly fine components just for the sake of efficiency, then what? Their old hardware wouldn't be recycled. Most likely sold and continued to be used by someone else. Making this argument completely dumb. But even if you'd assume for the sake of argument that I'd replace my two 290x graphics cards with something less power hungry, and put these to the bin (LOL) then what we would get? Tons of waste. And the replacement doesn't grow on trees either. Manufacturing hardware does have a footprint as well.

If you're concerned with nature, the best thing you can do is:

Keep using your current hardware for as long as possible

And on a broader scale this applies to every appliance including your car. By replacing your 10mpg car with a brand new 20mpg car, you're making a larger impact on the world's ecosystem than by driving your "wasteful car" until it actually needs replacing.

Do think before getting on the hype train of manufacturers. They'Re pushing greenness so you keep buying new things, not to save the planet. And to save the planet you actually need to stop buying new things needlessly.
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Books and board games are really energy efficient. ;)
 
M76 said:
And if all pc gamers started replacing their perfectly fine components just for the sake of efficiency, then what? Their old hardware wouldn't be recycled. Most likely sold and continued to be used by someone else. Making this argument completely dumb. But even if you'd assume for the sake of argument that I'd replace my two 290x graphics cards with something less power hungry, and put these to the bin (LOL) then what we would get? Tons of waste. And the replacement doesn't grow on trees either. Manufacturing hardware does have a footprint as well.

If you're concerned with nature, the best thing you can do is:

Keep using your current hardware for as long as possible

And on a broader scale this applies to every appliance including your car. By replacing your 10mpg car with a brand new 20mpg car, you're making a larger impact on the world's ecosystem than by driving your "wasteful car" until it actually needs replacing.

Do think before getting on the hype train of manufacturers. They'Re pushing greenness so you keep buying new things, not to save the planet. And to save the planet you actually need to stop buying new things needlessly.
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Exactly - once you have that hardware then changing it becomes biggest waste.
 
This is strange.
With the system in my specs, using an Ideal 61-760 meter, the max draw in 3dMark was 3.9A. Max draw in BF4 in a 64p game was 4.5A. Supply voltage measured at a rock solid 123.9VAC 60Hz. That ends up being 557.55w at the wall, and usage of .55755KWH. At my current utility rate, that ends up being $103/m for 24/7 BF4. System idles at 1.3A.

I'm sure with having hot and power hungry parts, I draw more current than most PC gamer's rigs.
 
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Not an uninteresting article, I do care about efficiency a lot. And not just because I pay my power bills, but also because better efficiency means less unwanted heat in my room, less noise, a potentially smaller rig and no need to worry about water cooling and such. It can also mean better reliability although if your temps are always in a safe range that's not really relevant I suppose.
 
kalston said:
Not an uninteresting article, I do care about efficiency a lot. And not just because I pay my power bills, but also because better efficiency means less unwanted heat in my room, less noise, a potentially smaller rig and no need to worry about water cooling and such. It can also mean better reliability although if your temps are always in a safe range that's not really relevant I suppose.
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Yup apart from a smaller environmental impact, the practical gains of higher efficiency are appreciable in day to day use.
 
Cool Vibrations said:
Is this really [H]ardForum? Is everyone driving a Prius now?
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Another advantage of efficiency (if you don't care about power draw), is the ability to get great overclocks. Notice how even with a water cooler the Furry X does not clock for shit.
 
cocdod said:
What reason is there to build a more power-efficient PC outside of saving $5 a year on the power bill?

I'm sure the answer would have something to do with the well-debunked idea that global warming is caused by humans. :rolleyes:
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It's for The Greater Good. The article is saying that collectively, PC gamers are a burden on the world's resources. Not saying I agree with it. But remember that the neo-Marxists have to point all the world's problems to a group. Specifically, one that doesn't include themselves.
 
one thing I never understood is why overclockers turn off power saving features (cool and quiet, speedstep). If your system crashes when downclocking at idle, it isnt stable. I cant imagine the heat my machine would put out of I didnt have those features enabled, even when not under load. Intel/AMD need to develop the tech to turn cores off when not needed too IMO. as web browsing and stuff on anything more than a dual core is a waste of energy.
 
Armenius said:
It's for The Greater Good. The article is saying that collectively, PC gamers are a burden on the world's resources. Not saying I agree with it. But remember that the neo-Marxists have to point all the world's problems to a group. Specifically, one that doesn't include themselves.
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Leaving marxism aside there are also some quite capitalistic benefits too ;)

- ability to buy cheaper PSU
- less heat being dumped into case so quieter case fans, and smaller impact on temperatures in gaming room while playing (or less heat for AC to dissipate if you have one)
- smaller pc parts which means smaller pcs can be made
- small savings on power bill
 
Michaelius said:
- small savings on power bill
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Larger savings on power bill if you live in the south and leave your AC cranked year-round. I know there's quite a few of you on these boards :D

Every watt of heat you generate inside the house requires power to move it outside the house. If you live up north (or just prefer no AC), and if you open your windows the outside air can easily handle an extra 100-200w power dissipation "for free."

But if you are constantly cooling the air in your house, you pay at least double for every watt you generate gaming. The newer the house, the better the insulation (it works both ways).
 
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I wonder why we do not have like 30 different people claiming this is obviously a Nvidia Shill promoting their company etc etc. Like we do in any thread dealing with an AMD advantage.

As for this study?
Great Job, I guess?
 
Uh cuz I've been here ten years and not cross posting this on ten different forums. And this study points out that power efficiency gains is good for both sides to pursue.
 
5150Joker said:
Uh cuz I've been here ten years and not cross posting this on ten different forums. And this study points out that power efficiency gains is good for both sides to pursue.
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The length of time you've been here doesn't make you impartial. Anyone who's seen you in the AMD section knows you're not.
 
5150Joker said:
Anyone that claims to be impartial is most likely a liar.
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+1 for honesty. Can't say I agree with most of your points, but if you're at least up front about your lack of impartiality, that puts you miles ahead of most people in my book.
 
TurboGLH said:
+1 for honesty. Can't say I agree with most of your points, but if you're at least up front about your lack of impartiality, that puts you miles ahead of most people in my book.
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Right, the study concentrates on Intel/Nvidia because AMD doesn't have a single desktop CPU to their name with high performance/watt, and the most powerful video card they have with decent performance/watt at the popular 1080p resolution is the ancient HD 7870.

And even that gets beaten pretty soundly by the rather crappy GTX 960. The GTX 970 practically smacks it around!

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_960_Gaming/30.html
 
defaultluser said:
Right, the study concentrates on Intel/Nvidia because AMD doesn't have a single desktop CPU to their name with high performance/watt, and the most powerful video card they have with decent performance/watt at the popular 1080p resolution is the ancient HD 7870.

And even that gets beaten pretty soundly by the rather crappy GTX 960. The GTX 970 practically smacks it around!

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/MSI/GTX_960_Gaming/30.html
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Going to ignore the Fury line?

https://www.techpowerup.com/reviews/Sapphire/R9_Fury_Tri-X_OC/31.html

Regular Fury is right next to Titan X / 980 TI and above the 960/970 above 1080p, and if you are playing @ 1080p with a $500+ card you are wasting both money and power.
 
5150Joker said:
A lot of gamers dismiss the impact of the power footprint PC gaming has but check out this article from Hexus where it states:



bef855dc-b9ae-453b-a3d8-d292910a61e0.png


They increased their power efficiency quite a bit by tossing in NVIDIA Maxwell + G-Sync components.

Source: http://hexus.net/gaming/news/pc/85997-worlds-gaming-pcs-require-50-dedicated-power-stations-2020/
Original article: http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12053-015-9371-1#page-1
Click to expand...

Are you going to link us the computer configurations from the original article or just show a graph with no base information for which to use it?
 
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