Power Hogs

[Archer0915]

Everything is shrinking! 5nm is awesome but I got an issue.

Why are they going for broke in the GHz and not streaming for good power at the same time. Are they?

Is where we are where we should be? PPW is a good measure between apples and apples but are we really improving?

 

[Niku-Sama]

i know what you mean but it also seems to be a instance of history repeating it self... again.
go faster and faster and then tune for efficiency

kinda reminds me of the preshot pentium 4 cpus. they used a ton of power (for the time) in an effort to go as fast as they could but eventually maintained that speed at much much less power.
that was also a time where you would blink and cpu's got 500Mhz faster and things in general were changing, ram types, bus types, all sorts of things

 

[JLK03F150]

I still have my old s478 Prescott 3.4 system. Yes, it was a super hot CPU but ran at 4.1GHz under water. I also have an LGA775 Prescott 3.4GHz, but only ran it as the EE CPU 14x266 (I also have the 3.73 EE too. lol).
Those where hot, but easier to cool than modern CPUs because of the larger surface of the old die.

 

[EarthDog]

Those where hot, but easier to cool than modern CPUs because of the larger surface of the old die.

+1

...and transistor density on the die wasn't nearly as high either.

 

[mackerel]

If you separate out between the architecture efficiency and operating point, they are generally getting more efficient with each generation. The main difference is they're choosing to run at higher performance, less efficient points generally speaking. Throw in a power limit and you can get significant improvements in efficiency for relatively little impact on max performance.

 

[Archer0915]

The way I see it, all this power and performance is wasted.

For most people, even gamers a 4 core 8 thread CPU running at a decent speed is all that is necessary. Imagine if when the flagship are released that the fast middle was covered. But I guess that would hurt top of the line sales. But what it really does is still hurt top of the line sales.

People will go for last Gen or competitors stuff. It is not always about price or performance. For me and many like me, it is about function and meeting criteria.

I bought the 7900x for one reason, base clock speed.

I wanted an rx7700 xt but after the reveal I realized waiting was pointless because it probably would have been a power hogg. Not real happy with the 6750xt where power consumption is concerned but it is what it is.

 

[freakdiablo]

Honestly, I actually think it's great.

My upgrades have slowed pretty consistently since college for this reason - with the "faster, faster, faster would be better" mentality, a (generationally speaking) moderately high end CPU is lasting me longer and longer.

And don't forget, speed improvements from the desktop CPUs also trickle down. I've actually been using my laptop just as much if not more than my desktop recently, because even though it's a few generations old - running a 10870H - it still does most of what I need at a fraction of the power use.

 

[Archer0915]

Honestly, I actually think it's great.

My upgrades have slowed pretty consistently since college for this reason - with the "faster, faster, faster would be better" mentality, a (generationally speaking) moderately high end CPU is lasting me longer and longer.

And don't forget, speed improvements from the desktop CPUs also trickle down. I've actually been using my laptop just as much if not more than my desktop recently, because even though it's a few generations old - running a 10870H - it still does most of what I need at a fraction of the power use.

My 2 8700s one laptop and one gaming PC do everything I need. I needed more speed on the CPU side for a couple of things. I have real need for all that my Ryzen 9700x offers but the speed matters. Not the best balance but I made the decision that it really did not matter.

If there were a quad core were offered with lower power needs I would have went with that.

Yeah intel this or that but at that moment I went AMD

 

[freakdiablo]

My 2 8700s one laptop and one gaming PC do everything I need. I needed more speed on the CPU side for a couple of things. I have real need for all that my Ryzen 9700x offers but the speed matters. Not the best balance but I made the decision that it really did not matter.

If there were a quad core were offered with lower power needs I would have went with that.

Yeah intel this or that but at that moment I went AMD

Yeah, it's always going to be that game - find the CPU that fits the task. I've actually been playing around with my 4GB RPI 4 this evening and even though it's rocking a little ARM CPU, it can be snappy - if all you're doing is just browsing the web.

But going up the ranks, I'll agree things get carried away on the heat and power side.

 

[freeagent]

The way I see it, all this power and performance is wasted.

For most people, even gamers a 4 core 8 thread CPU running at a decent speed is all that is necessary

I own 5600X and have it running with the cheapest 2x8 I could find in the city. I also own 5800X3D and flip flop between that and my 5900X. The way I run my chips is the way I think they were intended to run now that Zen 4 is out. For example, 5600X is supposed to be a 65w chip? well... with my power limits and my curve I can get it to do ~135w with just PBO, ~155w with a static clock. Hot as feck that is for sure. But that is with B-Die at 2000 1:1, not those shite Adatas that I have on it now. Same goes with my 5900X... 105w on the box, but with my power limits and PBO I can get it to do 240w PPT, around 265w static is where she starts to black out. Most people can't cool that properly, heck I barely can myself

But before I started to ramble, I am totally ok with the performance of a 5600X. X3D is pretty good too. Pretty boring as well since it is locked the feck down. Yeah sure you can still do FCLK/MCLK but the scaling is not like with other Zen 3 chips. You really have to work for that bandwidth and latency. B-Die is pretty much a must imo. 5900X is a beast that will rip up to its 5150MHz limit on multiple cores. Faster than a 6GHz 8700K in Pi32M too so you know it's still serious business. And that is just with a heatsink lol

 

[Archer0915]

I own 5600X and have it running with the cheapest 2x8 I could find in the city. I also own 5800X3D and flip flop between that and my 5900X. The way I run my chips is the way I think they were intended to run now that Zen 4 is out. For example, 5600X is supposed to be a 65w chip? well... with my power limits and my curve I can get it to do ~135w with just PBO, ~155w with a static clock. Hot as feck that is for sure. But that is with B-Die at 2000 1:1, not those shite Adatas that I have on it now. Same goes with my 5900X... 105w on the box, but with my power limits and PBO I can get it to do 240w PPT, around 265w static is where she starts to black out. Most people can't cool that properly, heck I barely can myself

But before I started to ramble, I am totally ok with the performance of a 5600X. X3D is pretty good too. Pretty boring as well since it is locked the feck down. Yeah sure you can still do FCLK/MCLK but the scaling is not like with other Zen 3 chips. You really have to work for that bandwidth and latency. B-Die is pretty much a must imo. 5900X is a beast that will rip up to its 5150MHz limit on multiple cores. Faster than a 6GHz 8700K in Pi32M too so you know it's still serious business. And that is just with a heatsink lol

Giving my 5600x to my daughter for Christmas

 

[Zerileous]

I think it's a product of legitimate competition. Both Intel and AMD are pushing for the 1% of performance that will put them on the top of the chart. So much of it is a reputation game more than what people actually need. These cheep 5600x prices are tempting me but it won't make a difference for what I do, especially with my GPU on the fritz.

 

[trents]

Shrinking fab size allows for greater power efficiency if that is your goal but it also allows you to pack in more transistors and other micro circuitry that draw more power when pushed for performance. So for the gaming crowd, the goal is not energy efficiency it is better performance.