RTX 4090 could pull 600 Watts. Power Consumption no longer matters?

Bills wise, will there be a noticeable difference? I will never even consider getting such an expensive card because i am not working for NASA, but i do want a 4070 FE.

Change your avatar.

We will have to wait and see what happens. Because the same rumor mill is suggesting upto 500w on AMD's Navi 31. AiB models on both sides will push it further yet.

At a time with rising inflation and energy costs, people should be concerned over power consumption as they are paying more for electricty.

Never had a GPU requiring more than a single 8pin power cable and hope top keep that tradition.

600W is nothing new this gen, if you look at power spikes, the 6900XT already goes over 600W

That much wattage should be a concern. Firstly, the closer you get to the peak rated output of your PSU, the less efficient that PSU is going to be, meaning your power usage is going to go up even higher than the wattage increase alone, but it's also going to reduce the lifespan of your PSU... and a PSU frying on you can cause damage to other parts of your system... I can fry up your motherboard, your CPU, probably even that expensive AF GPU.

Secondly, the cost of that wattage is going up exponentially. I tried to tell people those $1,200 checks were going to cost them more than $1,200 a year or two down the road, and with inflation due in large part to the printing of large sums of money over the past couple years, I think people have already spent way more in higher prices for other stuff than what that provided, and those prices don't look like they'll be stabilizing any time soon. 600+ watts is going to become rather expensive.

Then you also have to consider the additional cooling you're going to need for that. Most peoples builds struggle to cool existing hardware making their PCs sound like jet engines when they play something, and quite often that includes people who have a significant amount of cooling performance, like large CPU coolers, massive fans, liquid cooling, etc, and that still struggles. A 600 watt GPU is guaranteed to require even more cooling than that, or you're going to end up with a lot of throttling, rendering the whole upgrade moot anyway.

Another issue is we're already well past the point of diminishing returns when it comes to graphics, so much so hardware manufacturers are trying to hype up technologies that don't even provide much to gaming itself. Go back 10 years ago, hell 14 years ago to stuff like the Mass Effect games, which still look great today, go back 5 years before that and stuff begins to look noticeably worse. Spending an ass load of money not only in the GPU but the power to drive it is only going to yield miniscule noticeable improvements since we've pretty much already tapped out what the human eye can see in terms of resolution, frame rates, and ray tracing doesn't achieve much more than rasterized shaders at a significant cost to frame rate proving little more than an easier workload to developers.

If you want to be that much of a graphics whore to pay thousands of dollars for small improvements, go for it... but isn't it about time we start demanding games with better gameplay, better story, and stop being sold shit based on small improvements in graphics?

If AMD put out an APU with a similar amount of focus on graphics as the APUs they made for the PS5 and XSX, I'd be fine with that in a gaming PC. The only reason APUs have been fairly lackluster in performance up to this point is purely by design, so not to take away sales from their more expensive cards.

Game on a Switch, help save the earth.

Not to sound like a Greenpeace activist, but I think it’s embarrassing that we apparently can’t play games without hurting the Earth this much. 600 watts for a GPU? That’s just going overboard. No wonder I play on laptops, Switch and PS4.

Sold!

Buying solar panels to put outside my window just for this GPU!

Nope!

More Watts = more heat

More heat = more fan noise

Yes, wattage is everything

Nvidia’s probably going to charge $1500+ for the 4090, so it’s a completely irrelevant card as far as the vast majority of PC gamers are concerned. The real question is what their 4060 and 4070 caliber cards (and AMD equivalents) are going to draw and cost upfront. $500+ MSRP for a mid-range card is beyond ridiculous and I’ll bet both companies will try to pull prices like that even if crypto miners don’t drive em up again.

Don't care about xx90 cards. I'll probably get the 80 or 80Ti. Don't know why gamers go for 90 and Titan class GPUs.

Looks like I'll be going Solar energy soon.

I know there are people out there that like to build monster PC's but I'm starting to wonder why.

I recently acquired an RTX 3080 and while I don't regret it (not by a long shot), I've got to be honest: I Just don't think I use the horsepower it offers all that much.

AAA games are shit these days for the most part, and sadly they're the only ones with the real budget to utilize the kind of game engines that look sexy as hell. Yet at the same time, most of these games are multiplat and optimized for consoles, which have relatively poor hardware and sort of cancels out the demand for something that looks amazing.

I wonder when independent games are going to get in on game engine development and make something amazing. From waht I've read it's a lot of work and time involved so...

Let's be honest, how many PC gamers have xx90 cards? I've never really been interested in them either. I'm far more interested in a more bang for buck xx70 or xx80 card. It's not like you really need to max things out either.

Seems to me these 4090 cards will get their performance though brute force, hence the insane wattage.

@mrbojangles25: Most of the problem is the fact that almost all these cross-gen games are being made to work with the PS4/X1. Once those consoles finally get phased out we will see new games using new engines that will make use of the hardware of the PS5/XSX fully as well as modern gaming PC's.

def not worth it, I only got 3090 because it was available and I get tax cuts on it

Remember when people were losing their minds over the OG Titan and its $1000 price tag released in Feb 2013?

At least it was a workstation monster with double-precision performance absolutely crushing other gaming-focused cards.

Man, I was annoyed when they said the 3050 would use 130w. Was hoping the 4050 would be less (if they actually make one) but I should probably let that dream go now.

I thought Intel missed their chance to jump in the GPU game, but if they can get decent performance at a low power draw, it would be one thing to set them appart from the other guys. ARC 3 is supposedly 75w, so here's to hoping they can pull it off.

I suppose this is true. I wonder when we will see the swap.

Can't wait for Unreal Engine 5, for example. Not sure what Crytek has been working on either, they just seem to keep updating the CryEngine.

*Oh of course, can't wait to see what Id has to offer in the next few years.

@Juub1990: thats only because of dumb people with too much time on their hands pumping up crypto ponzi schemes.

Otherwise there's no way a gpu would sell for $5k.

Well, when as a developer you've ran out of story ideas and are just going to use the same gameplay mechanics everybody else has been using for years, I guess graphics is the best you can try to sell people on, which is what many modern AAA developers do. It's also why my RX590 suits me just fine right now, and will likely still be more than enough until the next GPU generation. At which point, I may even switch over the an APU build to reduce costs, heat, improve cooling and thermals, and have a smaller over all system.

so lets say i buy 4 or 6 of them.

i have to get a electrician to run new rated circuits for it.

also my guess a ac for it for the room.

btw

i do folding/boinc and such and when you full usage of gpus....

its massive energy/heat.

am running dual thread rippers with dual gpus. am very near power limit both the breaker and the wiring can handle.

I don't mind if a GPU or CPU pulls a decent amount of energy, but I don't want companies to lazily engineer their products either. 600 watts is too much energy.

I already have a seperate a/c unit for just my room. spring/summer months its mandatory cause of how much heat my pc puts out just gaming. so I'd say im ready? haha.

im more concerned about pricing. sounds like performance will be top notch

Absolutely, yes, power consumption matters. Requiring a 1000+ watt PSU just because of one consumer/prosumer part is kind of mental.

600w is stock one, u can bet the aftermarket ones will be 800+w.

In short u will sit in a sauna good luck with that.

300w is my absolute limit.

My rule has been no more than a single 8pin power connector. Might go up to 300W as well, it will depend on the actual GPUs though.

You sound like someone who played PC games with a Titan.

Look at the bright side people. Will oil/gas prices so high you won't need to turn on the heater anymore. Well, at least in the winters and for people living in the cold climate.