PSU manufacturer Collusion Incoming

[elkenrod]

So.... yeah,

 

The conspiracy theorist in me can help but anticipate the PANIC that's going on at every single company that makes its bacon on power supplies.  You all have seen the TDPs for the 900 series of cards from Nvidia, and if you haven't, then shame on you.

 

Ultimately, enthusiasts will not require the level of power that they once needed to drive their multi-GPU systems.  This means that PSU manufacturers will have to reinvent the wheel in order to meet previous sales numbers... long story short... I feel that this is just going to lead to shennanegans, and people will end up paying $200 for a 500w PSU.

 

So I'm calling it before it happens... for posterity.

 

Am I wrong?

[TheSLSAMG]

Considering AMD's power consumption is still through the roof and quad-SLI setups will still consume a lot of wattage, I will say that you are wrong. And TDP doesn't translate directly into power output.

[Trik'Stari]

Considering AMD's power consumption is still through the roof and quad-SLI setups will still consume a lot of wattage, I will say that you are wrong. And TDP doesn't translate directly into power output.

I agree but only to piss off the AMD fanatics lol

[DigitalHermit]

Highly unlikely imo...

 

There's demand across the board with most systems needing a 500-750W supply... I'd say no change in prices unless they come out with 500W 80+ Titanium PSUs...

[terrytek]

I agree but only to piss off the AMD fanatics lol

Seriously piss off the AMD fanboys on this forum as well. @Vitalius, you might not be one, but you got 290s, so whatever.

and @TheSLSAMG, same thing.

[daemonowner]

If power consumption drops dramatically across the board and scaling for multiple GPU setups turns to shit, maybe the number of high Wattage units sold would decrease significantly. I don't think this would lead to $200 500W units just for the sake of it, unless these 500W units were exceptional. The efficiency and overall performance of PSUs are still increasing, and things like software and silent operation will become more and more important, setting companies like Corsair out from the rest. And anyway, the power consumption of newer GPUs isn't down that much.

[Dimwitted]

Gpu's are following the same curve as the ghz wars on the cpu side of things. Thermal performance becomes more important than speed to the point where there is a wall that the silicon just can't pass. That said, don't forget that the gpu's are *huge*. I think that some of AMD gpu's are 42nm! Intel is on 14nm and working on 7nm. I doubt GlobalFoundries will ever be able to get that small but there's a huge room for improvement.

 

Overall, what is going to happen for the next few years are changing benchmarks emphasizing things other than framerates and the *quality* of the internals will be much more important than the sheer wattage of any piece of gear.