3080 + 3090 - Most power hungry cards in recent memory

[chaparral]

Listen at 18.56 seconds

 

[DeliciousStorage]

It's only 30W! For 4k gaming now it's a fair trade off imo. Looking at the list it doesn't seem too bad.......
Btw, did you look at the Performance per Watt chart?

The rumour is that AMD cards are going to be quite poor hungry as well. The revealed cards, three fan and two fan cards are 2x 8pin - 375W max.

Couldn't 2x8pin power consumption be anywhere between 226w and 375w? AMD's RDNA2 is rumored to have a 60% perf/watt increase over RDNA1, exceeding their 50% target, which is mostly from architecture changes. If it has better perf/watt than Ampere and can get close to the performance of the 3080, and I suspect it will, I'll probably be switching to an AMD GPU. Nvidia really screwed up trying to squeeze TSMC on pricing but I have no doubt they will get away with it.

 

[five8five]

Couldn't 2x8pin power consumption be anywhere between 226w and 375w? AMD's RDNA2 is rumored to have a 60% perf/watt increase over RDNA1, exceeding their 50% target, which is mostly from architecture changes. If it has better perf/watt than Ampere and can get close to the performance of the 3080, and I suspect it will, I'll probably be switching to an AMD GPU. Nvidia really screwed up trying to squeeze TSMC on pricing but I have no doubt they will get away with it.

But that's my point, if RDNA2 is so efficient why are there 2x8 pin connectors instead of say 1x6 and 1x8 on the smaller card? It just seems odd

There are so may rumours flying about. One is RDNA2 doesn't scale as well with more CUs and higher clockspeeds, hence requiring more juice.

 

[ebilcake]

So long as the coolers can handle the heat from increased power, then it's not an issue.

Curious how the OEM's will handle the extra heat.

 

[zola25]

This probably doesn't matter to most people, but the power consumption is actually a deal breaker for me which is a great shame as the price/performance looks excellent by modern standards. As the Mrs and I both game in a small room TDP is really important and we can't afford to add another 2-300 watts (2 cards) of heat into our office. We've tried - and suffered - previously, and even moving from overclocked 1080Ti's to 2070 Supers at stock made a huge improvement.

Looks like we'll be waiting to see how the 3070 fairs performance wise.

Edit: cooling the cards is one thing, but a lot of people don't seem to understand the heat is still dissapated into the room. All good cooling does is remove the heat from the GPU more quickly and efficiently.

 

[pastymuncher]

^ I agree with that. Power efficiency is also important to me and the power these cards draw is just ridiculous. I read the Hexus reviews of a couple of cards and for a second tier card to draw 66-89w more than the last series top tier card (2080ti) is just disgraceful. How much more will the 3090 draw and then there will most likely be ti and/or super versions as well. Things should be getting more power efficient not worse. I was looking at getting a 3070 once prices have settled down but if they are also going to be stupidly power hungry as well I will be skipping yet another series and sticking with my 1070.

 

[Dave2150]

This probably doesn't matter to most people, but the power consumption is actually a deal breaker for me which is a great shame as the price/performance looks excellent by modern standards. As the Mrs and I both game in a small room TDP is really important and we can't afford to add another 2-300 watts (2 cards) of heat into our office. We've tried - and suffered - previously, and even moving from overclocked 1080Ti's to 2070 Supers at stock made a huge improvement.

Looks like we'll be waiting to see how the 3070 fairs performance wise.

Edit: cooling the cards is one thing, but a lot of people don't seem to understand the heat is still dissapated into the room. All good cooling does is remove the heat from the GPU more quickly and efficiently.

The AMD cards may be worth waiting for, as they're on a superior 7nm process from TSMC, which is significantly more power efficient that Samsung's 8nm. The performance is a big unknown though, lets hope it's good!

 

[Nasher]

Greta would not approve.

 

[BallistixOnZ490]

Whats important is performance per watt, not simply the number of watts used.

 

[DeliciousStorage]

Whats important is performance per watt, not simply the number of watts used.

Both are important, and Ampere fails at both with the 3080. Yes it is slightly more power efficient than the previous high end cards, but it fails because it's not enough for the node shrink. If every generation had similar power efficiency gains we would have cards using thousands of kilowatts by now.