Why aren't GPUs more efficient?

[Wizitchizit]

Having a discussion with a buddy about GPUs, and how they keep getting more and more power hungry. But they've already made good and much more efficient GPUs for consoles, laptops and mobile, so why not take that route for desktop GPUs? Less power means less cooling required, which makes production costs less as well. 

 

Thoughts?

[emosun]

12 minutes ago, Wizitchizit said:

But they've already made good and much more efficient GPUs for consoles, laptops and mobile, so why not take that route for desktop GPUs?

You do understand those gpu's are slower and run hotter than desktop gpu's yes?

[emosun]

also modern day gpu's are incredibly efficient

If you believe this may not be true then I invite you to play crysis on an Ati 3870 x2 from 2007 at 25fps pumping out more heat than my hairdryer

[Wizitchizit]

But if they were using desktop cooling solutions wouldn't that make them run much cooler? Wouldn't they be able to achieve more performance with the sort of cooling in the desktop form factor?

[Wizitchizit]

They might be much more efficient than cards from years past, but they also are consuming much more power afaik. My point is why don't they work towards performance without increasing power consumption? Maybe it's just not possible? I don't know, which is why I'm asking. 

[IkeaGnome]

25 minutes ago, Wizitchizit said:

But if they were using desktop cooling solutions wouldn't that make them run much cooler? Wouldn't they be able to achieve more performance with the sort of cooling in the desktop form factor?

If they run cooler, why not give it 20 or 30 more watts to come back to a temperature that is well within limits, but gives more performance? 

 

25 minutes ago, Wizitchizit said:

Wouldn't they be able to achieve more performance with the sort of cooling in the desktop form factor?

They do.

 

[Zando_]

44 minutes ago, Wizitchizit said:

They might be much more efficient than cards from years past, but they also are consuming much more power afaik. My point is why don't they work towards performance without increasing power consumption? Maybe it's just not possible? I don't know, which is why I'm asking. 

High end SKUs are prioritizing performance over power draw, to the point of hitting some very hefty diminishing returns. The 3090 Ti would be the clearest example of this, if you cut it back to 300W it still outperforms a 3080 while pulling less power: https://www.igorslab.de/en/cooler-breaker-station-fusion-reactor-when-the-geforce-rtx-3090-ti-with-300-watt-choke-sets-the-efficiency-list-on-its-head-and-beats-the-radeons/12/

 

But since performance is the priority, they give it a beefy cooler and make it chug down 440W or more. 

 

Lower SKUs do the better efficiency thing though, the 1070 and 1660 Ti are essentially more and more efficient 980 Tis for example. 250W -> 160-180W -> ~130W for the same level of performance. If you want more performance, a 3070 at around 200W is beating all of those by a long shot while landing between a 1070 and 980 Ti for power draw. The lower SKUs aren't pushing performance over all else so they don't hit the same diminishing returns.  

 

[Jurrunio]

Because most buyers, especially on the high end, prefer as much performance as possible at the same cost. Just compare number of people overclocking their system versus undervolting their system, way more chose performance over efficiency.

 

That said undervolting support is way wider than overclocking (even locked Intel systems could undervolt, though they disabled it for some devices years ago due to an exploit, check Plundervolt). Efficiency enthusiasts actually have easier time getting what they wanted than overclockers.

[Mark Kaine]

efficiency =/= consumption

 

good old car analogy:

 

F1 car is more efficient than any conventional road car, but uses a gazillion times more fuel! Its also way faster.

 

 

So this is a "you problem" , you wanted a Prius, but bought a Ferrari instead.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Mark Kaine]

3 hours ago, Jurrunio said:

That said undervolting support is way wider than overclocking

So in my experience you need to use powerlimit if you want to save energy.

My 3070 is undervolted pretty heavily, but still uses same watts than stock… the difference is, it performs better, because  its more "efficient", but the power limit stayed the same… 

(270w btw) 

 

 

[Jurrunio]

44 minutes ago, Mark Kaine said:

So in my experience you need to use powerlimit if you want to save energy.

My 3070 is undervolted pretty heavily, but still uses same watts than stock… the difference is, it performs better, because  its more "efficient", but the power limit stayed the same… 

(270w btw) 

 

 

Fun thing, my laptop 1060 has voltage to frequency control but no power limit control

[jaslion]

21 hours ago, Wizitchizit said:

They might be much more efficient than cards from years past, but they also are consuming much more power afaik. My point is why don't they work towards performance without increasing power consumption? Maybe it's just not possible? I don't know, which is why I'm asking. 

Oh thats perfectly possible. Thats what the 3070 is for example a more efficient 2080ti. Basically how things have gone forever.

 

I mean take for example a gtx 480. That thing consumed a crapton of power but now it's easily beaten by a quadro t600 which consumes merely 40w of power.

 

They became MUCH more efficient thus creating headroom for cooling. So the higher end sku's go back to the limit of the architecture and cooling provided for the best possible performance.

[varrys]

19 hours ago, Mark Kaine said:

So in my experience you need to use powerlimit if you want to save energy.

My 3070 is undervolted pretty heavily, but still uses same watts than stock… the difference is, it performs better, because  its more "efficient", but the power limit stayed the same… 

(270w btw) 

 

 

Well, all I had to do with my 3080 was undervolt, and I went from top draw of 370w to 320w. May depend on the maker and how much power they allow. But I easily saved wattage with undervolting.

[Wizitchizit]

Thanks for all the feedback guys. Kind of a noob when it comes to hardware so always trying to learn.