Get ready for 200 Watt GPUs

[Pabster]

Story here.

175W+ for a GPU?

Me thinks something is gonna have to change.

 

[Ayah]

Somehow, 175+ sounds excessive. As in fake. 😛

 

[Pabster]

I'm not so sure. Current solutions do run awful close to the 100W ceiling. And if they don't shrink to 65nm I can see these figures being plausible.

 

[schneiderguy]

awesome, the rumor was 300watts next gen GPU's, now its "only" 200! think of all the power were saving!

 

[Smartazz]

I wonder how expensive these will be. Didn't AMD and Intel get critisized for doing the same thing a while back?

 

[sunzt]

I remember reading an article that refers to the current next gen of GPUs (G80, ATI's whatever it's called) as being extremely power hungry where as the following generations of GPUs (the fully DX10 ones) will focus on power/performance efficiency like what AMD and Intel are doing.

 

[Smartazz]

Originally posted by: sunzt
I remember reading an article that refers to the current next gen of GPUs (G80, ATI's whatever it's called) as being extremely power hungry where as the following generations of GPUs (the fully DX10 ones) will focus on power/performance efficiency like what AMD and Intel are doing.

Yeah I read the same thing, and I think the new ATI chip is the R600.

 

[jazzboy]

To be honest I heard this sort of article before the 6xxx and 7xxx series video cards launched and they ended up consuming LESS power than their previous series cards (6800u consumed less than FX 5800u and 7800 used less power than 6800u).

Short story - I'll believe it when I see it in official reviews.

Of course, if for once, this does turn out to be true then I hope people just avoid these new cards because that sort of power consumpsion is nothing more than utter disgraceful and both ATI and Nvidia should be ashamed of themeselves. I'd also hate to think what sort of cooling would be required.

 

[Sonikku]

Anandtech already did an article on this. With vendors making seperate PSU's that fit in a HDD bay for the soul purpose of feeding cards.

Cards have gotton larger, hotter, more expensive and more power hungry over time.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v600/Foxy_McCloud/01.jpg

For the love of the Force, Nividia! The X1900XT is big enough as it is!

As long as consumers keep buying, they'll keep pushing the same tricks until consumers say no.

 

[TanisHalfElven]

a new die shrink is just round the corner. these rumors will not pan out.

 

[gxsaurav]

wow, this much Power requirment, maybe i should buy the nuclear power plant next door, for my home 😛

 

[Raduque]

At those power ratings, I'll have to start turning off my computer when I'm not using it. 🙁

Sonikku, what card is that in the middle? The top one is a 7950GX2 and the bottom is an X1900XTX, right?

 

[Keysplayr]

Originally posted by: Raduque
At those power ratings, I'll have to start turning off my computer when I'm not using it. 🙁

Sonikku, what card is that in the middle? The top one is a 7950GX2 and the bottom is an X1900XTX, right?

That could be "8850GX2"??? 2xmobile G80's? That thing is ginormous.

 

[tuteja1986]

I have heard the R600 to consume less power than R580

 

[fbrdphreak]

When you are at more than twice the power of the CPU, it is time to hit yourself on the head with the same high velocity cluestick that AMD and Intel have already experienced.

Hehehehe

I'm surprised it will come to this, as a lot of NV's desktop development comes from the mobile side which currently has a top range of 65W TDP IIRC. Obviously the desktop side goes a bit more as all the same power saving features aren't implemented, but stuff like clock gating certainly is. I hope NV and ATI don't get into a high end pissing match to develop the most disgustingly over-powered thing they can, the true difficulty will be in making a powerful energy efficient GPU.

 

[nitromullet]

Originally posted by: keysplayr2003

Originally posted by: Raduque
At those power ratings, I'll have to start turning off my computer when I'm not using it. 🙁

Sonikku, what card is that in the middle? The top one is a 7950GX2 and the bottom is an X1900XTX, right?

That could be "8850GX2"??? 2xmobile G80's? That thing is ginormous.

I think he asked a serious question... That is the 7900GX2, the first dual gpu, quad-SLI attempt made by NVIDIA earlier this year, which was replaced by the 7950GX2 before it ever made it to mass production. It is not a next-gen card...

 

[Golgatha]

"Either way, this is simply too much. The current 100+W is borderline insane, and adding half again to it is just silly, speed is OK, but I think we have just passed the point of being ludicrous. When you are at more than twice the power of the CPU, it is time to hit yourself on the head with the same high velocity cluestick that AMD and Intel have already experienced."

Not sure I agree with this whole quote. At extremely high resolution and IQ setting, pretty much all games are GPU bound (even with SLI or Crossfire). CPUs are all going 65nm and some are there right now. We need to shrink the die on GPUs before getting them out the door, but the vicious product cycle in the GPU arena doesn't really allow for that, so either deal with the power requirements or wait for the refreshed product early next year IMO.

 

[996GT2]

Wow, GPUs using more power than CPUs...that's a bit overboard...

 

[fbrdphreak]

Originally posted by: tanishalfelven
a new die shrink is just round the corner. these rumors will not pan out.

90nm-->80nm won't do much. They need to hit 65nm to make any big difference.