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Video Card Power Requirements: The hard ceiling

krickerdkrickerd Posts: 188
in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

I know what you're thinking, because I'm thinking the same thing.  The new 1080TI cards REQUIRE 600-freakin' W of power - EACH.  What if you are rich and insane and build a system with 2?  Practically, you're going to need a 1500W PS.  Folks, that's a GD SPACE HEATER!  We are going to hit the wall with what standard house current can supply if they don't get those requirements back down soon.  Unless.  Unless the standards change so that bedrooms, livingrooms etc are wired for 220V.  Nope.  Not going to happen.  It's going to get interesting.

Comments

  • krickerdkrickerd Posts: 188
    edited March 2017

    Okay so I guess it's not as bad as I thought.  Looks like the requirement is 250W per card but the recommended wattage is 600W.  They still have to limit this or they will hit the wall.

    Post edited by krickerd on
  • Thomas WindarThomas Windar Posts: 272

    The recommended wattage is for the WHOLE system usually. It basically states that "if you have a 600W Power Supply - you can fit the card in". 
    The card however has a 250W requirement which means you would need AT LEAST a 850W Power Supply unit if you wanted to hold 2 of them in your system. 

    Generally you want a bit more than stated to have a bit of breathing room. If your system would state it consumes 850 - You'd prefer to have 900~1000W PSU. 

    It's not that terrible - as the card is probably created for gamers that only house 1 of them at the same time so I doubt we'll see much change there. 

  • ToborTobor Posts: 2,300

    I looked at the nVidia specs and like Thomas says, they claim 250W, though this is likely peak at full power for all cores. Two cards would consume 500W max, so the 1000W supply he recommeds for the whole system is quite doable, and not all that expensive, considering the investment in these cards. If money were no object, I'd probably go 1200W, and add extra cooling to the box.

    But...money is an object, so I won't be doing any of this!

     

  • namffuaknamffuak Posts: 4,191

    Real-world experience, with a 980 TI and a 1080. With both cards at 97% GPU usage for an extended period of time, all case fans (6) and the GPU fans and CPU fan running at near maximum, my systems pulls close to 560 Watts total - as reported by the UPS monitoring software. My UPS is an APC NS 1350, rated at 1350 Volt-Amps -- which translates to 810 Watts.

    The 980 TI, at 97% GPU, hits about 70% power useage, or 175 Watts; the 1080 runs at about 77%, or about 138 Watts. And I suspect the monitoring software does NOT get access to the power consumed by the fans.

    I would imagine that two 1080 TIs would pull somewhere in the vicinity of 185 to 190 Watts (they're rated at 250).

  • krickerdkrickerd Posts: 188

    I recently finished my new system.  3 GTX-1080s.  Liquid cooled with 3 radiators and 8 fans total.  Have a 1200W 80Plus platinum PSU.  My UPS is likely worthless other than maybe conditioning the power a little since it is only 450VA or 275W.  If power were interrupted during any serious load it would simply shut down.  I guess if I want to have uninterrupted power I would have to do a SERIOUS upgrade.  Oh, here is a photo through the tempered glass of my Thermaltake case.

    PC White Light Web.jpg
    1405 x 1471 - 506K
  • JamesJABJamesJAB Posts: 1,760

    Real world.... My budget upgrade machine that I use for all my redering work is an old Dell Precision T7500
    This thing came stock with an 1100W power supply.  Large capacity PSUs are nothing new.

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