PC Components with High Power Draw an Issue for an Overwhelming Majority of Users: Survey

[InVasMani]

Open all the windows in the house while it's burning to the ground I need 1 more frame rate per minute RTX 666 w/extra crispy RTRT. The flames look so real I can hardly tell or feel the difference and I can't even hear the fans spinning over all those beeping smoke alarms.

 

[AusWolf]

Open all the windows in the house while it's burning to the ground I need 1 more frame rate per minute RTX 666 w/extra crispy RTRT. The flames look so real I can hardly tell or feel the difference and I can't even hear the fans spinning over all those beeping smoke alarms.

Or you can do as I did: I bought a 6500 XT because I just couldn't for the love of God listen to the fans on my 2070 anymore.

 

[Bomby569]

Or you can do as I did: I bought a 6500 XT because I just couldn't for the love of God listen to the fans on my 2070 anymore.

you would be better (in all aspects) to just strap some noctua to the 2070. I hope you at least didn't lose money on that insane swap



Anyway i do thake offense on path we took, i remember in the past when nvidia/amd released a nuclear fusion gpu they would just get a backlash, now we just strap more aluminium, more copper, more fans, more plastic, more capacitors, etc and of course mo'money.

I could do with more spaced released and a better optimized gpu, especially now with FSR and DLSS.

 

[Fast Turtle]

I'm utterly disgusted how many selfish, spoiled brats don't care about the environment!

And I'm one of those whose done as much as possible to help the environment by going fully off grid. Problem is, I now have a limited power generation system using Solar Panels (5kw array) and have to watch what I buy. For many people, it would make more sense as someone else posted to use simple power strips and turn off many of those vampire loads. I'm sorry folks but I don't need a damn clock in my stove, microwave or even my coffee make but the problem is, they all have them and I've tested them to see how much of a vampire load they have. The microwave is the worst offender at drawing the same as a 40w incadescent bulb being left on 24/7 while the coffee maker uses another 15w 24/7. That's just two appliances that do not need to be drawing any power unless actually in use. Have no idea what the clock on the stove draws since it's on a 230v connection but I am considering redoing the kitchen soon to cut out all of those vampire loads.

Even the cable box draws too much power and I'm considering dropping the expense since I rarely watch it any longer as I can access the Local Stations Websites and watch what I'm interested in instead of all the crap about the next "High speed pursuit" 150 miles away.

 

[AusWolf]

you would be better (in all aspects) to just strap some noctua to the 2070. I hope you at least didn't lose money on that insane swap

Money isn't an issue for me in this price range, and I'm never gonna spend thousands on a graphics card.

I'm keeping the 2070 as a backup, in case I do need more power in the future when prices (potentially) shoot up again.

 

[Bomby569]

Money isn't an issue for me in this price range, and I'm never gonna spend thousands on a graphics card.

I'm keeping the 2070 as a backup, in case I do need more power in the future when prices (potentially) shoot up again.

that makes no sense, either strap some noctuas to the 2070 and sell the 6500xt, or sell the 2070 that will only lose value with the launch of the new cards that are coming soon.

 

[sn2x]

I don't think it's that much of an issue, I just buy lower power GPUs.

I have a 3060 Ti, it uses about 200 watts and it runs many of the games I play at 4K60 at settings I'm happy with (I play mostly games from a few years ago). I will always stick with GPUs in the 200w range (maybe 250w with an undervolt) as I will not put up with the heat in a small room, if my room was much bigger I probably wouldn't care.

There will always be GPUs in the 200-250w power band and every two years performance increases by a good 30% or so, and in the mid-range GPUs are much cheaper making more frequent upgrades more easily justifiable.

Power isn't an issue in CPUs for me. Gaming, web browsing and office tasks (my main use case) don't push CPUs much. I render a video every now and then and even that is not an issue because rendering a video takes a few minutes and then it's back to web-browsing, gaming, office tasks or idling...

 

[zlobby]

And I'm one of those whose done as much as possible to help the environment by going fully off grid. Problem is, I now have a limited power generation system using Solar Panels (5kw array) and have to watch what I buy. For many people, it would make more sense as someone else posted to use simple power strips and turn off many of those vampire loads. I'm sorry folks but I don't need a damn clock in my stove, microwave or even my coffee make but the problem is, they all have them and I've tested them to see how much of a vampire load they have. The microwave is the worst offender at drawing the same as a 40w incadescent bulb being left on 24/7 while the coffee maker uses another 15w 24/7. That's just two appliances that do not need to be drawing any power unless actually in use. Have no idea what the clock on the stove draws since it's on a 230v connection but I am considering redoing the kitchen soon to cut out all of those vampire loads.

Even the cable box draws too much power and I'm considering dropping the expense since I rarely watch it any longer as I can access the Local Stations Websites and watch what I'm interested in instead of all the crap about the next "High speed pursuit" 150 miles away.

Now multiply to few million households in the U.S. alone. And as others have pointed, these are the smallest contributors to guzzling and therefore pollution.

There is certain irony now because many large businesses are trying to minimize energy consumption and pollution. Well, for the reasons of profit, but herein lies the irony, although the impact is significant.

There is just no excuse for not doing what you can.

 

[Fast Turtle]

This is in fact demonstrably incorrect.

In this time and age of social media shaming people and "cancelling" them has shown itself to be an effective method of making people reconsider their actions. As the matter of fact, it can absolutely scale up to shaming corporations via boycotting their products/services, if cancelling mob is large enough and profits tank sufficiently. Money talks, you know?

Factually Incorrect again: As I am one of those people who don't give a damn about Social Media and prefer to have it posted at my Home "Get off My Lawn". No I'm not a luddite by any means, I've just gotten tired of listening to folks whine and complain about things instead of getting off their buts and actually doing something. Sorry Peanut Gallery but the Elephants don't like to eat peanuts.

 

[ExcuseMeWtf]

Factually Incorrect again: As I am one of those people who don't give a damn about Social Media and prefer to have it posted at my Home "Get off My Lawn". No I'm not a luddite by any means, I've just gotten tired of listening to folks whine and complain about things instead of getting off their buts and actually doing something. Sorry Peanut Gallery but the Elephants don't like to eat peanuts.

Are you the only person living on planet Earth?

As for boycotts: there has been one effective large-scale boycott in the history of the world. One.

That's a bad faith argument.

If you set the scale large enough on a whim, you can say there were no such boycotts.

Meanwhile even sth as silly as Diablo Immortal is coming to PC after all due to customer backlash and Blizzard realizing what a loss in revenue it would be.

Again, money talks. And most here seem to be oblivious to how big corps work.

 

[Makaveli]

It is a problem and its why I'm staying at the 300Watt range on gpu's for my system.

My current 6800XT is just within that range and when I do upgrade in the future I would like to keep that as a hard limit so no 450+ watt monsters for me.

I also don't feel the need to upgrade my 850W Titanium PSU.

 

[R0H1T]

Meanwhile at Nvidia

 

[mechtech]

Lol what?!? Are people running HEDT 24-7 and expecting low power? That’s like getting a 1ton 4x4 pickup truck and expecting 30 mpg with the 6L v8.

Wait till you have a couple kids and an electric dryer lol. I use about a MW/hr a month (1000kw.hrs). My pc is negligible in that total amount. But I turn it on when I use it and shut it down when done with it. So it typically runs 0-4hours a day. Weekends 0-12hrs depending on weather and chores and kids and commitments.

 

[zlobby]

Meanwhile at Nvidia

That is АЗ-5 worthy! Scraaaaam!

 

[AusWolf]

that makes no sense

It doesn't have to. I like keeping interesting hardware, or stuff with sentimental value. I look at PC building as a hobby, not a form of investment.

 

[CyberCT]

If the current USA administration REALLY cared about the environment (like they claim they do), they would have offered tax incentives or some other incentive to companies to permanently implement work from home for employees with computers that worked from home during the whole Covid scenario.

Companies adapted with the right hardware/software/infrastructure and got used to work from home ... now nearly all of them are forcing employees right back in the office ... with all those unnecessary cars and vehicles back on the road. This is the opportunity of the century to finally implement something good for both employees AND the environment ... but they failed. Again. Like almost everything else they get their hands in.

Nope ... let's get people back on those roads to do the daily commute pollute ...

 

[R0H1T]

Companies adapted with the right hardware/software/infrastructure and got used to work from home ... now nearly all of them are forcing employees right back in the office ... with all those unnecessary cars and vehicles back on the road. This is the opportunity of the century to finally implement something good for both employees AND the environment ... but they failed. Again. Like almost everything else they get their hands in.

That's not just on the US thing is it? Over here as well companies are forcing back employees to come into office! When lots of work they do can simply be done from home, I blame the greedy companies for that

The worst part of (office) work for me is the 2-4 hours wasted daily on travel, for some people it's even longer!

 

[CyberCT]

That's not just on the US thing is it? Over here as well companies are forcing back employees to come into office! When lots of work they do can simply be done from home, I blame the greedy companies for that

The worst part of (office) work for me is the 2-4 hours wasted daily on travel, for some people it's even longer!

Not just the USA .... but the current clowns in charge here are "environmentalists" but when it comes time to implement a once in a lifetime agenda (that helps BOTH environment and employees) they're oblivious to this gift just handed to them (and the environment and workers). I miss working from home, cooking lunch in my own kitchen, working right next to my window. I was about as efficient there as the office and even if I wasn't, I'm salary (like most WFH workers) so we have our work agenda that must get done timely, regardless.

I could also run stress tests for CPU and GPU at different voltages to tune my PC for the best performance / heat / power consumption combination while working lol.

 

[Audioave10]

I don't see the "Tech" getting much better overall but its the race to go 4K. So, for that reason Video Cards are bigger, hotter, heavier,
use MUCH more power, have more plastic in them and don't last as long as they used to. With 4K in your face, yes, RT looks better.
I prefer 1080P where RT means nothing to me and use a lot of ($45) 13 year old video cards. I can enjoy this because I don't do these always online
modern console games. I'm PC only! Remember...I'm OLD so don't kill me because of the attitude.

 

[FeelinFroggy]

Why shouldn't the tech industry be held to the same account as other industries regarding efficiency and their impact on the environment.
Just look at formula 1, same/better performance from smaller engines and more efficient use of technology. I mean you can get a 400bhp 2l 4 cylinder for focus now, where previously that power was reserved for v6/v8 territory.

Why can't there be a power limit imposed on GPUs so they focus on IPC (or whatever the PGU equivalent is) rather than shoving more power hungry cores into an ever increasing die size just because the node has shrunk.
I have a 5950x and a 3090, I didn't buy it blindly, I knew they were power hungry; but that doesn't mean I have no right to desire more power efficient cards in an increasingly expensive world, where the cost of energy and the impact on the environment is out of control.

A 400w+ GPU is simply out of touch with the direction of travel towards a more environmentally sustainable world; doesn't matter how many FPS it gives you.

You cant compare GPUs to F1 racing. Those cars are all designed around a strict set of requirements to make it a level playing field for the race. We dont want a level playing field. We want companies to continue to research and improve their products to beat their competitors. This is how industries and products are revolutionized. Competition breeds improvements.

You say a 400 watt GPU is out of touch with a sustainable environment, but your 3090 is no conservationist as it pushes over 400 watts under heavy loads Do you want to rethink your wattage cap we need to put on GPUs?

 

[Steevo]

Then allow me tell you about "smart meters".

I’m already doing the lords work with energy efficient, it’s both cause I’m cheap and because I don’t want to waste it.

My 4000sq ft home uses less energy to heat, cool, and make hot water than a trailer house thanks to geothermal heat pumps and a superheat loop. I’m installing a new water heater/storage tank to both have enough hot water and to increase the systems efficiency.

It all just takes money.

 

[caroline!]

14% users:

 

[AnarchoPrimitiv]

PC components draw more power generation over generation because reviewers let the manufacturers of those components get away with it, fixating with performances without being critical to the high power draws

It's a phenomenon called the "rebound effect" and its been observed for close to 100 years where gains in efficiency have ALWAYS been met with higher overall power usage, not less. It can be observed in many other things as well though, consider how despite the ever increasing productivity of the average worker, they never work fewer hours, and in countries like America, many are working more than ever. A large part of it is tied to the capitalist system and goal of perpetual economic expansion. With respect to technology and one of the possible answers to this survey, rebound effect is highlighted as one of the major reasons why technological development will never solve the environmental crisis.

 

[looniam]

14% users:

if "the performance is there"

 

[Deleted member 24505]

You cant compare GPUs to F1 racing. Those cars are all designed around a strict set of requirements to make it a level playing field for the race. We dont want a level playing field. We want companies to continue to research and improve their products to beat their competitors. This is how industries and products are revolutionized. Competition breeds improvements.

You say a 400 watt GPU is out of touch with a sustainable environment, but your 3090 is no conservationist as it pushes over 400 watts under heavy loads Do you want to rethink your wattage cap we need to put on GPUs?

People who buy 3090/ti try to convince themselves they care about power use, but don't really. I will buy a mega powerful product and downclock/undervolt it so it uses less power when i could have actually bought something that does in fact use less. Why not run games at a lower res with a less powerful gpu instead of buying mega powerful and making it use less. bets on these people having 4090s too.

I really do care about the enviroment as i have made my PC use less power

I am not gonna lie, i don't really care, i am one person that does not really have a mega power using rig anyway so in the big scheme of things does it really matter. Some people on here run 3 or 4 rigs, so does it matter what components they have. And what about miners? not just greedy fuckers, but don't give a shit about power use either.