CPU vs. GPU Power Consumption -- Are We Barking Up the Wrong Tree?

[Grim281]

After reading this, I am glad I am not pushing my 920 to the limit. Sitting at 3.8 at stock vcore helps the power bill out.

 

[The-Noid]

You want to see numbers go up?
Add lots of FBDIMMS AND 15K Spindles. Those four platter 15K MAX drives were killer on power. 150W for every 10 drives AVERAGE. Push the box to the wall with i/o and you were sitting at a quarter kilowatt - just for the drives!

A heavily o/c SR-2 system with dual 5970s running o/c will pull rather ridiculous numbers too.

Kill-A-Watt devices are only single pole (120V) devices limited to 15A so no good with these systems. Pulling close to 9A at 230VAC btw.

p.s. What's more satisfying than ANY kind of hardware upgrade out there is the thrill of seeing the lights dim when you start LinX.

The majority of the companies that would actually use 15k spindles (I used them on my personal box for years when UW80 was considered crazy speed ) are being replaced by SSD.

Data center boxes are trying to become more and more efficient and are actually achieving this goal. Building a box to do benchmarking is not the standard computer and heavily, heavily 4.4 ghz 980x for example are not boxes that stay on all the time.

 

[RussianSensation]

After reading this, I am glad I am not pushing my 920 to the limit. Sitting at 3.8 at stock vcore helps the power bill out.

Ya that's why I kept my Core i7 860 at 3.9ghz. Going to 4.0ghz required a voltage bump of 0.06V which increases temperatures by 8*C on the Megahalems.

Check out these results by Tom's Hardware on the 920:
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/overclock-core-i7,2268-10.html
Core i7 920 @ 3.8ghz = 310W total system power
Core i7 920 @ 4.0ghz = 417W (+117W for 200mhz...)

Ouch.

 

[Phynaz]

IDC uses phase change

Which is sub ambient.

 

[dmens]

Well Larabee is *supposed* to be the custom hand designed GPU that kicks ass because ATI/Nvidia still do short product cycles with ASIC methodology.

IMO, the current GPU power trends are not sustainable, prescott style.

 

[LoneNinja]

I'll stick to my Athlon II X4, Radeon 4670, and Antec Earthwatts 380W. It's nice and power efficient. lol

 

[Ben90]

Which is sub ambient.

Touche' didn't read the requirements. Ive never understood going overkill on ambient cooling. A well thought out cheapo TEC on a cheapo loop could spank a KL-350 on a 3 GPM flow backed up by 10 480 radiators.

 

[aigomorla]

Touche' didn't read the requirements. Ive never understood going overkill on ambient cooling. A well thought out cheapo TEC on a cheapo loop could spank a KL-350 on a 3 GPM flow backed up by 10 480 radiators.

cheapo Tec?

All that would cost more then my overkill ambient system.

Also There is no such thing as cheap in dictionary.
This is what i do with TEC's

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

At what point do you just get a car radiator?

 

[OILFIELDTRASH]

Of course I did. Just wanted to remind everyone with Core i7 rigs being upset over Fermi's higher power consumption.

One step ahead of you already. I undervolted my i7 920 1.18v in bios (shows 1.15 in windows) then overclocked it to 3.2 ghz. I'm getting the best of both worlds!

 

[Rubycon]

Any chance of plumbing that into a system to cool it?

This is what i do with TEC's