Graphics card question

[Aree Soothsayer]

What would be the best 100w or less video card to get?

I currently run a 1050 Ti with 4g ram on it.

[5x5]

Why 100W?

[Aree Soothsayer]

Just now, 5x5 said:

Why 100W?

A computer's cost isn't also in the initial purchase, but the $ per hour in use.

[5x5]

2 minutes ago, Aree Soothsayer said:

A computer's cost isn't also in the initial purchase, but the $ per hour in use.

You do realize that your fridge uses 5-6 times that power. Your AC uses 4 times that power. Your boiler used 10 times the power. Get the best card you can afford, buying a low power card can save you 5$ over the course of three years. That's worthless considering you'll also have a slower card and need to upgrade sooner

[Vejnemojnen]

well, you can fine-tune, undervolt a 1660ti-1660sup to be sub-100w. : )

[Aree Soothsayer]

1 minute ago, 5x5 said:

You do realize that your fridge uses 5-6 times that power. Your AC uses 4 times that power. Your boiler used 10 times the power. Get the best card you can afford, buying a low power card can save you 5$ over the course of three years. That's worthless considering you'll also have a slower card and need to upgrade sooner

Mini fridge, No ac, a 9inch fan. 

My pc runs 24/7. Not a few hours a day. So energy drain is a consideration.

[5x5]

Just now, Aree Soothsayer said:

Mini fridge, No ac, a 9inch fan. 

My pc runs 24/7. Not a few hours a day. So energy drain is a consideration.

Then you'll save 10$ in three years. You don't get it, all cards use low power at idle and low load. So handicapping your system won't help anything. Even GPU miners who run hundreds of 200W cards in massive racks don't pay that much in bills

[Aree Soothsayer]

3 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

Then you'll save 10$ in three years. You don't get it, all cards use low power at idle and low load. So handicapping your system won't help anything. Even GPU miners who run hundreds of 200W cards in massive racks don't pay that much in bills

You are no help.

[5x5]

1 minute ago, Aree Soothsayer said:

You are no help.

Get yourself the best card you can afford - you won't save money on the power bill, just waste money on an upgrade in a year as low-TDP cards are extremely slow. With a 1050 Ti, you won't see more than a 20% performance upgrade. With a 2060 for example - you'll get a 300% increase in performance.

[Aree Soothsayer]

Just now, 5x5 said:

Get yourself the best card you can afford - you won't save money on the power bill, just waste money on an upgrade in a year as low-TDP cards are extremely slow. With a 1050 Ti, you won't see more than a 20% performance upgrade. With a 2060 for example - you'll get a 300% increase in performance.

Hmm, that is helpful.

No video upgrade at this time.

[5x5]

1 minute ago, Aree Soothsayer said:

Hmm, that is helpful.

No video upgrade at this time.

There is plenty of reason to get a 2060-class card. Seriously, you won't notice it on a power bill unless you buy 4 of them and run them at 100% load 24/7...

[Aree Soothsayer]

Just now, 5x5 said:

There is plenty of reason to get a 2060-class card. Seriously, you won't notice it on a power bill unless you buy 4 of them and run them at 100% load 24/7...

I am poor.

[5x5]

Just now, Aree Soothsayer said:

I am poor.

Then a 5600 XT or 5500 XT/1660

[merco]

34 minutes ago, 5x5 said:

Even GPU miners who run hundreds of 200W cards in massive racks don't pay that much in bills

That is not true at all, in some countries it is not even worth mining anymore because the power costs are higher than the value of the currency you will get from it.

[5x5]

36 minutes ago, merco said:

That is not true at all, in some countries it is not even worth mining anymore because the power costs are higher than the value of the currency you will get from it.

Actually - it's because ASIC miners are several times faster. Mining Bitcoin is still profitable. Other currencies simply lost all value

[merco]

Just now, 5x5 said:

Actually - it's because ASIC miners are several times faster. Mining Bitcoin is still profitable. Other currencies simply lost all value

Fine I guess you know more about mining than I do, but that's beside the point that power isn't free.

 

 

This is from a 5600xt review I was reading, I would say the best price to performance card that also has low power consumption would be the 1660 Super.

 

Half my steam friendslist plays 50 hours a week if you look at hours played in the past 2 weeks. Let's stay conservative and say that's a 30 watts difference to their current card and they are playing roughly 5 hours a day instead. If your price per kWh is 30 cents that would mean about $16.50 per year and that's just going up a very small step 1050ti to 1660 super. Certainly not 5 bucks in 3 years. 

 

Looking at the 2060 that's about 70W more. Assuming everthing else is the same that's a difference of about $38 per year and again most people I know play even more than 5 hours a day. If that's not a lot of money to you that's great, but for many people it's worth considering.

[5x5]

2 hours ago, merco said:

Fine I guess you know more about mining than I do, but that's beside the point that power isn't free.

 

 

This is from a 5600xt review I was reading, I would say the best price to performance card that also has low power consumption would be the 1660 Super.

 

Half my steam friendslist plays 50 hours a week if you look at hours played in the past 2 weeks. Let's stay conservative and say that's a 30 watts difference to their current card and they are playing roughly 5 hours a day instead. If your price per kWh is 30 cents that would mean about $16.50 per year and that's just going up a very small step 1050ti to 1660 super. Certainly not 5 bucks in 3 years. 

 

Looking at the 2060 that's about 70W more. Assuming everthing else is the same that's a difference of about $38 per year and again most people I know play even more than 5 hours a day. If that's not a lot of money to you that's great, but for many people it's worth considering.

That's assuming 100% synthetic load you're looking at. Most games don't put the same amount of load on different hardware. While a 1050 Ti will be at 100% load and power to play the game, a 2060 would be at 600MHz, 30% load, using LESS power than all of the 1050 Ti's core. That's the reason WHY efficiency is discussed at all. Because unless he's playing every single game in existence at an uncapped frame rate of 1000 frames per second, your calucations are 3-4 times higher than reality. In reality, he'll  be saving about 3-4$ per year with a 2060 to compare and 5$ with a 5600 XT. Even the most power hungry cards like the 480 or 290X still wouldn't amass a 40$ a year difference BECAUSE of efficiency at low loads and the fact that minecraft, terrarria and 90% of games won't use a 2060 past 50%

[Aree Soothsayer]

2 hours ago, 5x5 said:

That's assuming 100% synthetic load you're looking at. Most games don't put the same amount of load on different hardware. While a 1050 Ti will be at 100% load and power to play the game, a 2060 would be at 600MHz, 30% load, using LESS power than all of the 1050 Ti's core. That's the reason WHY efficiency is discussed at all. Because unless he's playing every single game in existence at an uncapped frame rate of 1000 frames per second, your calucations are 3-4 times higher than reality. In reality, he'll  be saving about 3-4$ per year with a 2060 to compare and 5$ with a 5600 XT. Even the most power hungry cards like the 480 or 290X still wouldn't amass a 40$ a year difference BECAUSE of efficiency at low loads and the fact that minecraft, terrarria and 90% of games won't use a 2060 past 50%

If you're paying for the card I'll use it. 

 

Spending 6 months saving for a card is a bit of a stretch.

[5x5]

23 minutes ago, Aree Soothsayer said:

If you're paying for the card I'll use it. 

 

Spending 6 months saving for a card is a bit of a stretch.

Then get the best you can afford, not the one with an arbitrary number. Tuning for efficiency is easy, purposefully buying slower hardware because their inefficient speed requires lower power than the inefficient speed of another is not smart purchasing

[merco]

11 hours ago, 5x5 said:

That's assuming 100% synthetic load you're looking at. Most games don't put the same amount of load on different hardware. While a 1050 Ti will be at 100% load and power to play the game, a 2060 would be at 600MHz, 30% load, using LESS power than all of the 1050 Ti's core. That's the reason WHY efficiency is discussed at all. Because unless he's playing every single game in existence at an uncapped frame rate of 1000 frames per second, your calucations are 3-4 times higher than reality. In reality, he'll  be saving about 3-4$ per year with a 2060 to compare and 5$ with a 5600 XT. Even the most power hungry cards like the 480 or 290X still wouldn't amass a 40$ a year difference BECAUSE of efficiency at low loads and the fact that minecraft, terrarria and 90% of games won't use a 2060 past 50%

I understand that this is 100% load, but you're also just assuming the lowest edge cases here. The truth will be somewhere in the middle. It's not like you leave everything as is when you get the new card, you will usually play at low settings with a 1050 and crank the details with a 2060. I don't think you will use less power that way. You can talk about efficiency of course, but you cannot ignore absolute values. I honestly don't know how you think 90% of all games don't use your graphics card, gaming is literally what the GPU is for. You can always increase resolution or graphics settings to the point that the GPU is sweating in tons of games. You keep bringing up those 3-4-5 dollars for some reason like that is a fact set in stone. How do you know the OP is not playing Hunt showdown for 10 hours a day, if you look at my example I was even calculating with 5 hours. How do you know how much the power company is charging them? I understand that if you sit in bulgaria where the kWh costs 9 cent and play minesweeper all day it won't make much of a difference, but you're just ignoring every other scenario.  

[Aree Soothsayer]

20 minutes ago, merco said:

I understand that this is 100% load, but you're also just assuming the lowest edge cases here. The truth will be somewhere in the middle. It's not like you leave everything as is when you get the new card, you will usually play at low settings with a 1050 and crank the details with a 2060. I don't think you will use less power that way. You can talk about efficiency of course, but you cannot ignore absolute values. I honestly don't know how you think 90% of all games don't use your graphics card, gaming is literally what the GPU is for. You can always increase resolution or graphics settings to the point that the GPU is sweating in tons of games. You keep bringing up those 3-4-5 dollars for some reason like that is a fact set in stone. How do you know the OP is not playing Hunt showdown for 10 hours a day, if you look at my example I was even calculating with 5 hours. How do you know how much the power company is charging them? I understand that if you sit in bulgaria where the kWh costs 9 cent and play minesweeper all day it won't make much of a difference, but you're just ignoring every other scenario.  

9 cent an hour? That's half what I pay for mine. Lucky bastid.

[5x5]

We've had this discussion on this forum every year. It's always been discussed with each new GPU launch. If the power bill did take such a massive hit, intel would be out of a business due to shit efficiency. But they aren't. The fact is, if he spends 10 hours a day maxing a 1060, he's probably not paying the bill himself so the discussion is moot. The average working person can spend a max of five or so hours per day gaming as they have a job, a family and household chores to attend to

[merco]

1 hour ago, 5x5 said:

We've had this discussion on this forum every year. It's always been discussed with each new GPU launch. If the power bill did take such a massive hit, intel would be out of a business due to shit efficiency. But they aren't. The fact is, if he spends 10 hours a day maxing a 1060, he's probably not paying the bill himself so the discussion is moot. The average working person can spend a max of five or so hours per day gaming as they have a job, a family and household chores to attend to

Again you're just assuming stuff, what if they are streaming video games to pay the bills? Not everyone has a family and a 9 to 5 job. Of course if they live at home with their family they can also just not worry about it because their parents pay for it and that makes power free right? Am I following you correctly there? Intel would be out of business? What are you even talking about, I thought we were discussing the power draw of low end vs high end GPUs. At this point who cares though right? I feel like you're just trying to win an argument for the sake of being right, without even trying to back it up with any logic. So let's just say you're right and call it a day.  

[5x5]

42 minutes ago, merco said:

Again you're just assuming stuff, what if they are streaming video games to pay the bills? Not everyone has a family and a 9 to 5 job. Of course if they live at home with their family they can also just not worry about it because their parents pay for it and that makes power free right? Am I following you correctly there? Intel would be out of business? What are you even talking about, I thought we were discussing the power draw of low end vs high end GPUs. At this point who cares though right? I feel like you're just trying to win an argument for the sake of being right, without even trying to back it up with any logic. So let's just say you're right and call it a day.  

Don't be adversarial - this is a forum for civil discussion, not a cage fight.

Firstly - if he were using the system to make money - then it would make sense to invest in higher power/end components as that would directly improve quality and revenue stream. Moot point on your end.

Secondly - if he's living with his parents and isn't working full time, he likely a) - is a student so he still has responsibilities or b) - his parents are supporting him comfortably so he has the free time and income to pay 5-10$ extra yearly on a power bill so as to enjoy better quality of life gadgets (assuming he can afford them. Now, from the looks of the thread, I imagine the OP is not a deadbeat but has a job and is supporting himself hence why he is worried. Hence why I stated that he would not be gaming full time and at max utilization/power draw. Again, moot point on your end.

Thirdly, I gave that as an exaggerated example - as if power draw was so highly impacted by higher power cards, then surely Intel's upcoming 500W GPU and 300W CPU would be dead on arrival to virtually everyone. Why would they even bother pushing such a product to market?

 

Lastly, while I'm trying to explain that downgrading for the sake of lower spec sheet TDP is not a good idea, you're basically disregarding physics, logic and reason so as to argue with me over cherry-picked data.

[merco]

2 hours ago, 5x5 said:

Don't be adversarial - this is a forum for civil discussion, not a cage fight.

Firstly - if he were using the system to make money - then it would make sense to invest in higher power/end components as that would directly improve quality and revenue stream. Moot point on your end.

Secondly - if he's living with his parents and isn't working full time, he likely a) - is a student so he still has responsibilities or b) - his parents are supporting him comfortably so he has the free time and income to pay 5-10$ extra yearly on a power bill so as to enjoy better quality of life gadgets (assuming he can afford them. Now, from the looks of the thread, I imagine the OP is not a deadbeat but has a job and is supporting himself hence why he is worried. Hence why I stated that he would not be gaming full time and at max utilization/power draw. Again, moot point on your end.

Thirdly, I gave that as an exaggerated example - as if power draw was so highly impacted by higher power cards, then surely Intel's upcoming 500W GPU and 300W CPU would be dead on arrival to virtually everyone. Why would they even bother pushing such a product to market?

 

Lastly, while I'm trying to explain that downgrading for the sake of lower spec sheet TDP is not a good idea, you're basically disregarding physics, logic and reason so as to argue with me over cherry-picked data.

I'm sorry about being rude I get hotheaded sometimes and I agree that for most people it won't make that much of a difference. But what about if you have 2 people using the same computer 5 hours a day each? I just think your general perspective without even asking about their habits is inconsiderate. The only clue they gave was it is running 24/7. So yes of course I also give you exaggerated examples to show you the opposite can be true. You may call it cherry picking but are you not doing the same then if you give exaggerated examples? I already said the truth will be somewhere in the middle. I also think for most people $40 a year is not a big deal, but I am considering the possibility that for some people it is and frankly so should you. 

 

While you're trying to explain something, and don't take this the wrong way, you are just stating made up statistics about 90% of all games and $5 a year, per 3 years, $3 a year, etc., instead of actually talking to the point that you're trying to make. You call those facts too, sorry but I get annoyed by that. 

Here is an actual fact: if your power company charges you 3 times as much, your power bill will be 3 times higher. So what is a $5 difference for someone is a $15 difference for someone else. So yes you're right it might be a small difference to most, but you could also be wrong there for that very simple reason.

If you would actually lay out your logic, physics and reason, I might have understood what you were trying to say, you know? It is really frustrating to hear: "You don't get it, fact is this. Why? Because that's a fact. We do this every year."

Again sorry for my choice of words and don't take it personally, but if that's your take on explaining something, maybe you should work on that a little bit. I know I get angry too easily as well, but at least I am aware of it.