My mom scolded me for electric bill spike due to R9 290

[gilang01]

GTX 970 is better for the most part, but it isn't cheaper. I'd take if over R9 290, for sure - but when you look at the market, in most countries the GTX 970 is significantly more expensive.

Either OP lives in a wonderland where power is stupidly expensive and left the card running on for 24/7 while he didn't use the older nVidia system at all, or her mother is overpaying for electricity, or the power bill increase does not account for the change of GPU alone. Or then he just wants to bash the manufacturer, considering he's just saying that the card "killed" those power supplies.

Well here it's actually cheaper/samE.

[FLUFFYJELLO]

There's this thing called a "status" for posts like these.

[Vek1313]

Just a month ago, i sold off my aging GTX 660 Ti and got myself a second hand reference PowerColor R9 290 for $215, it had killed 4 power supplies (yep you read that right) before it worked without a problem

-corsair cx600m

-new cx600m from rma

-seasonic x650

-new seasonic x650 from rma

-another new seasonic x650

And then just yesterday my mom asked me why is my room so hot and loud (R9 290 fan) she also wondered why this month's electric bill went up 40 bucks. She immediately blamed the R9 290 and scolded me for buying it... Lol

Sold my R9 290 and getting a gtx 970 next week, done with amd. Now i know why people don't buy amd for high end build

I didn't know a graphics card can cause this much issue

There is a reason most people go with non reference cards. Besides if it is a brand like that I would never buy from them.

[Eyesthetics]

Still though, it took 4 psus to get it working

[Albatross]

Well I know electricity is expensive where I live, so this is extremely believable to me. When my friend got a 280x she saw a 62$ increase in the bill. She sold it for a GTX card and it went right back to normal. Coincidence? Maybe, but probably not due to what I have seen people encounter with their R9 cards...it was a good idea selling it OP.

[Guest]

OP, give us your kWh price. That doesn't seem right. As others have pointed out, with a generic KWh price of 20 cents you literally can't reach what you're describing, not even with 24/7 operation of a stock R9 290. You'd have to overclock it AND leave it running 24/7 at max load.

As for the noise, if you have the reference cooler then there's your problem. Most aftermarket cards run cool and quiet, like the TriX or VaporX cards.

 

 

The point still stands that AMD graphics card consumes twice as much power as nvidia

 

Nope. An R9 290 consumes roughly 250W from the wall (with a decent PSU), a 970 is pretty close to 180W for most models (and easily breaks 200W if you overclock it). The 980 should be close to 200W at stock clocks or with a slight OC. The TitanX also pulls 250W from the wall.

Also, compare it to the 700 series: 200W for a 770, 250+W for a 780 and 780ti (or titan).

 

At the end of the day you will not save a considerable amount of money from switching to one high-end GPU to another. Run the numbers yourself or give us your kWh price. If you are that concerned about power consumption you should simply use a lower powered card, like a 960 or 750ti or something like that.

Oh, and idle power consumption for most GPUs is roughly 10W. There's not a whole lot of variance there and it's so little that it doesn't really matter.

[xAcid9]

Well I know electricity is expensive where I live, so this is extremely believable to me. When my friend got a 280x she saw a 62$ increase in the bill. She sold it for a GTX card and it went right back to normal. Coincidence? Maybe, but probably not due to what I have seen people encounter with their R9 cards...it was a good idea selling it OP.

Where do you live? 62USD? That is not possible.

[FLUFFYJELLO]

OP, give us your kWh price. That doesn't seem right. As others have pointed out, with a generic KWh price of 20 cents you literally can't reach what you're describing, not even with 24/7 operation of a stock R9 290. You'd have to overclock it AND leave it running 24/7 at max load.

As for the noise, if you have the reference cooler then there's your problem. Most aftermarket cards run cool and quiet, like the TriX or VaporX cards.

Nope. An R9 290 consumer roughly 250W from the wall (with a decent PSU), a 970 is pretty close to 180W for most models (and easily breaks 200W if you overclock it). The 980 should be close to 200W at stock clocks or with a slight OC. The TitanX also pulls 250W from the wall.

Also, compare it to the 700 series: 200W for a 770, 250+W for a 780 and 780ti (or titan).

At the end of the day you will not save a considerable amount of money from switching to one high-end GPU to another. Run the numbers yourself or give us your kWh price. If you are that concerned about power consumption you should simply use a lower powered card, like a 960 or 750ti or something like that.

^this

And I also find it hard to believe IT caused 4 PSUs to break (aside from possibly the CX ones since that line from corsair is trash). Sounds more like user error.

Edit: @Albatross the most expensive power in the US is Hawaii at 37¢/kWh. Next highest is New York at 24¢/kWh. The furthest south state with kwh prices above 12¢ is Southern California. So... Try again? $62? Bull. S#!+.

[Albatross]

Where do you live? 62USD? That is not possible.

 

In the south, USA, rural area. You would be surprised by how much running the water heater costs here. To save money people here switch off the water heaters and not run coolers/fans in summer. It is crazy.

[Guest]

In the south, USA, rural area. You would be surprised by how much running the water heater costs here. To save money people here switch off the water heaters and not run coolers/fans in summer. It is crazy.

 

As for all of these posts, what's the kWh price there? If we assume that the person in question is not a complete moron and doesn't have their GPU running at 100% load 24/7, then it sounds incredibly unbelievable to see a 60+USD spike just from a GPU.

[FLUFFYJELLO]

In the south, USA, rural area. You would be surprised by how much running the water heater costs here. To save money people here switch off the water heaters and not run coolers/fans in summer. It is crazy.

Having lived in the far, rural South (town in Texas, population 870) for two years, where it was closer to 10¢ than 20, your power bill STILL makes no sense.

[TheMcSame]

While the 290 is terrible inefficient, I doubt it raised the bill by that much.

 

The PSU thing... I mean, I would've looked into it after the second supply died, IIRC you didn't seem to do much until the 4th one died.

 

The heat? To be expected, if you weren't expecting this then you didn't do your research. It's also the reason I wont buy AMD's cards until they sort out their cards and make them more efficient.

[Eyesthetics]

Just asked to my mom what is the exact amount of Bill increase, she said she was exaggerating, it went up by $22. Still quite considerable

[FLUFFYJELLO]

*double post*

[Albatross]

As for all of these posts, what's the kWh price there? If we assume that the person in question is not a complete moron and doesn't have their GPU running at 100% load 24/7, then it sounds incredibly unbelievable to see a 60+USD spike just from a GPU.

 

I have no idea if she had it running at 100%. That could explain it though, maybe she was mining or something. haha our providers here suck though, for everything. I know the state is something like 9.00 but I don't know how to check my provider for such details.

 

Having lived in the far, rural South (town in Texas, population 870) for two years, where it was closer to 30¢ than 20, your power bill STILL makes no sense.

 

Not my power bill, so I don't know the details...what else could have caused it? seems odd going to a different card brought the price back down.

 

@FLUFFYJELLO

 

don't believe me, i really don't care.

 

 

Just asked to my mom what is the exact amount of Bill increase, she said she was exaggerating, it went up by $22. Still quite considerable

 

ahaha

 

[Guest]

Just asked to my mom what is the exact amount of Bill increase, she said she was exaggerating, it went up by $22. Still quite considerable

 

What's. your. kWh. price.

We can easily tell you (and her) whether that makes sense or not. While 22USD sounds more sensible it still sounds like a LOT for a single GPU. Also, read my earlier post. Switching to a 970 won't make a huge difference, power consumption will go from 250W to 180W (definitely more if you overclock). You'd still be paying +16 bucks (if those 22USD are truly from your R9 290 alone), you save 6 bucks a month maximum (probably less).

 

edit: Actually, I (and everyone else) calculated that wrong. I forgot your 660ti. If we assume similar gaming habits then you somehow managed to spend 22 bucks on power with a 110W difference in power consumption. I call 100% bs on that. Again, kWh price so we can figure this out for you.

[Guest]

Either obvious troll or your energy rates are severely over the top.

What you describe in the OP is retarded.

[SteveGrabowski0]

40 bucks?

 

Lets say that it costs 0.20/kWh

You burned 200kWh in a single month?

Divide that by 30*24 (=720)...

0,277kW

or 277 watt...

That seems about the TDP of that card, did you leave it on 24/7? Amazing...

 

He'd have to be doing Furmark 24/7 lol

 

Post sounds like bullshit... killed 4 power supplies, cost $40 a month to run, burned down the entire block, added a couple of degrees to global warming, still only got 25 fps in Crysis

[Guest]

The point still stands that AMD graphics card consumes twice as much power as nvidia

Twice? What are you smoking?

[Suika]

I'm surprised I haven't gotten yelled at by my parents for running a 4690k, a 970, and three monitors, pretty much around the clock.

The 4690k has impressive idle power consumption, and the 970 isn't much higher. Comparatively speaking leaving a i5-4690k/970 based rig on idle isn't that much more expensive than leaving a console turned off.

Dunno about monitors but I assume they shut off after some time without use.

[Eyesthetics]

What's. your. kWh. price.

We can easily tell you (and her) whether that makes sense or not. While 22USD sounds more sensible it still sounds like a LOT for a single GPU. Also, read my earlier post. Switching to a 970 won't make a huge difference, power consumption will go from 250W to 180W (definitely more if you overclock). You'd still be paying +16 bucks (if those 22USD are truly from your R9 290 alone), you save 6 bucks a month maximum (probably less).

edit: Actually, I (and everyone else) calculated that wrong. I forgot your 660ti. If we assume similar gaming habits then you somehow managed to spend 22 bucks on power with a 110W difference in power consumption. I call 100% bs on that. Again, kWh price so we can figure this out for you.

$0,11 per kwh

[Eyesthetics]

He'd have to be doing Furmark 24/7 lol

Post sounds like bullshit... killed 4 power supplies, cost $40 a month to run, burned down the entire block, added a couple of degrees to global warming, still only got 25 fps in Crysis

I'm not even lying, it did kill 4 psu

It made my room warmer than what it uses to be

[Trik'Stari]

The 4690k has impressive idle power consumption, and the 970 isn't much higher. Comparatively speaking leaving a i5-4690k/970 based rig on idle isn't that much more expensive than leaving a console turned off.

Dunno about monitors but I assume they shut off after some time without use.

Normally yes, but I have that, as well as hibernate and sleep disabled because my OS is on an SSD. Not to mention me being on the PC for like, 14 hours a day if not more.

[FatPenguin]

Just fed up 

[Guest]

$0,11 per kwh

 

The card alone, running at 100% load 24/7 can use up to 19.8 dollars a month. We assume that you're not a moron though, so the card will be used for what, 5 hours a day average (which is pretty high tbh.), then we get a price of 4.125 dollars a month. That's what it actually costs to run this card.

 

As for the difference between your old card and this, it gets even funnier. If we assume the same gaming habits then you can consume 8.712 dollars of power maximum more than before. With general use (5 hours a day average) you will only use 1.815 dollars worth of power more than before.

 

You save maybe a dollar a month by switching to a 970. You're welcome.

 

Calculations are done as follows: 0.11$/kWh * (wattage of the card in kW) * (number of hours per day) * (number of days in a month)

An example would be: 0.11$/kWh * 0.25kW * 24h * 30 (for the first number I got)