SPCR

Will this trend ever end?

This thing pulls more power than the outlet can provide! The PC industy is starting to look like the audio industry.

What an efficient means of separating fools from their money. I'm impressed.

lol that could power 10 computers

Heheh, I first read the thread title as saying "200W", but then I did a double take and noticed that extra zero!

Clearly made by and for people compensating for something...

PT Barnum was right, sadly.

A fool and his money are soon parted.

You'll never go broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people.

And apparently this one is not a quote of P. T. Barnum:

There is a sucker born every minute.

http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/P._T._Barnum

how much does it cost anyway

What's weird is they never say how you're supposed to power it. 2000 watts output, even if it's 80% efficient at that rate is 2500 watts input. If it's only 75% efficient then that's 2667 watts. At 115 volt input you'd need a breaker at 22 - 23 amps. Most household breaker boxes have the lines trip at 15 amps, with some at 20 amps. That's 1725 and 2300 watts respectively. It should be worth pointing out those are usually tied to an entire room, so the room lighting, monitor, sound system, UPS, printer, and anything else you have plugged into a power socket in that room is all competing for the same power from your home's breaker box. To think they can suck 2500 watts (or maybe more) from a standard power outlet is beyond optimistic.

Perhaps that is all under the assumption that nobody in their mind could find a way of putting 2000W worth of power-sucking crap in a single system.

Quote from the article:

"It's not so much that we believe personal computers today need as much as 2000W of power," explains George Ali, Vice President of Sales and Marketing for Ultra Products. "In fact, most household circuits can't even provide the AC power this unit would require in order to put out 2000W of DC power. But there's the always-inevitable questions of 'Do I have enough power?' or 'Does my power supply have enough juice where my high end components need it.' That is why we have put together this 2000W unit; as the end all of power supplies as far as DC output goes. With as much as 1800W available on the 12V alone, there should be no concern whatsoever that there is enough power available for quad core, quad GPU or large drive arrays."

It is for those people that blame all their crashes on the power supply.

Your computer with a 450W power supply crashed? Go get a new power supply with more wattage -- Do that a few times and you are up to 2000W

autoboy wrote:Will this trend ever end?

Apparently not - OCZ, Ultra both tout 2kW power supplies at CES.

To think they can suck 2500 watts (or maybe more) from a standard power outlet is beyond optimistic.

But don't common household devices (like kettles and electric showers) use more than this? (for ex. see http://www.plymouth.gov.uk/facts )

Perhaps that is all under the assumption that nobody in their right mind could find a way of putting 2000W worth of power-sucking crap in a single system.

Maybe not a single system, but two 4x4 systems SLI 8800GTX etc. Never underestimate the planet-destroying tendencies of the l33t gamer crowd.

jaganath wrote:But don't common household devices (like kettles and electric showers) use more than this? (for ex. see http://www.plymouth.gov.uk/facts )

Maybe, but people can't use those things to post retarded YouTube videos, create annoying MySpace profiles, or write a Wikipedia article about nose bleeds that includes information about Naruto just because you might need it.

Maybe not a single system, but two 4x4 systems SLI 8800GTX etc. Never underestimate the planet-destroying tendencies of the l33t gamer crowd.

I personally put all the blame of global warming solely on gamers. I know it isn't entirely their fault, but it is the same mentality that is causing global warming in the first place. Therefore, I will (perhaps irrationally) place all the blame on them.

Never heard of an electric shower, but if it's a large scale appliance, it probably runs off 240V and gets its own appliance outlet.

For that matter, I find those figures are quite overestimated. Many washing machines and dishwashers are powered from ordinary 120V plugs/outlets, which means they must be within the ~1800W maximum capacity of a 15A circuit breaker. In both cases, the bulk of the heat is required by the water heating element, which does not operate constantly during the cycle anyway.

I challenge any of you to find a household (not commercial) kettle that requires 2000W. Such a kettle would routinely trip circuit breakers.

mantralord wrote:I personally put all the blame of global warming solely on gamers. I know it isn't entirely their fault, but it is the same mentality that is causing global warming in the first place. Therefore, I will (perhaps irrationally) place all the blame on them.

I'm not entirely sure this is sarcasm...
Just in case: gamers get the blame of a lot of things lately. I say, blame the car drivers (for example). For the heat a car generates in half an hour, someone could play games for a week (not considering exhaust gases that contribute as well) and still not generate as much heat.

spookmineer wrote:I'm not entirely sure this is sarcasm...
Just in case: gamers get the blame of a lot of things lately. I say, blame the car drivers (for example). For the heat a car generates in half an hour, someone could play games for a week (not considering exhaust gases that contribute as well) and still not generate as much heat.

As I said, I realize that gamers contribute very little to global warming themselves, but it is that same consumptionist mindset that is causing it to begin with. Also, at least in the context of the Internet, gamers (which are likely overzealous teenagers) are far more annoying than a soccer mom driving an oversized SUV. Therefore, I blame gamers just out of spite.

(My posts are half satire and half real, and are best read as a wavy line between what makes sense and what is absurd and surreal. Basically, read them as if you were on LSD, because my mind operates in a way that mimics such a state, for whatever (perhaps unoriginal) reason. If someone asked me seriously who I consider the biggest contributors to global warming, the answer will definitely not be "gamers," but in the context of the Internet I'll have to give the nod to overclockers/gamers for being the most wasteful and arrogant. Of course, just out of spite.)

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I stop paying attention to PC hardware for a few months, and this happens...

I never heard of anything that could require this much power, I see they mention 30A video cards, which I'm guessing means 360W. I don't think I want to know if that's accurate.

mathias wrote:...
I never heard of anything that could require this much power, I see they mention 30A video cards, which I'm guessing means 360W. I don't think I want to know if that's accurate.

Don't worry, its probably not accurate. Corsair showed off a system at CES that had 2 8800 GTXs in SLI running on one of their 620W PSU. I doubt even the highest end 8800 series of cards use more than 150W of power under load.

PLEASE review this MikeC

Rofl. This is as much power as vacumm cleaner draws! Stupendous and pointless.

I am adamant that my current PSU is my last.

overclockers and gamers may strain the electricity grid for a few hours a day, but i think in the long run, people like me contribute more to greenhouse emissions. this is what runs at my house 24/7... for my whole family, of course.

1 x fileserver
1 x HTPC
2 x desktops

all of them folding@home.

mr. poopyhead wrote:overclockers and gamers may strain the electricity grid for a few hours a day, but i think in the long run, people like me contribute more to greenhouse emissions. this is what runs at my house 24/7... for my whole family, of course.

1 x fileserver
1 x HTPC
2 x desktops

all of them folding@home.

Is there absolutely anything that Folding@Home has accomplished, other than waste tons of power? It's funny that even with all of that distributed computing power, it doesn't even touch the power of the world's best supercomputer, Blue Gene. Sure, F@H has about 220 TFlops, but at what performance-per-watt? Probably some extremely poor ratio, given the consumptionist mindset of the typical F@H user, and the inefficiency of consumer hardware. If they truly wanted to save lives, they'd pitch in the money to just build a supercomputer.

SETI@Home is even worse. And who the hell still runs these things anyway? Distributed computing is so 2001.

It's funny that even with all of that distributed computing power, it doesn't even touch the power of the world's best supercomputer, Blue Gene.

Oh what a surprise, a DC network which is 100% contributed by volunteers on home PCs can't beat the most advanced supercomputer in the world constructed and funded by a computer corporation with a billion-dollar budget. What should be embarrassing to IBM is that it is even in the same ballpark.

I do agree that SETI@Home is a massive waste of resources.

No way, looking for radio transmissions of TV shows from space aliens is a wonderful thing to do! Especially when, what, half of the world's electricity comes from non-renewable resources? See, we need the space alien technology in order to save ourselves when the oil, coal, and natural gas all run out.

Especially when, what, half of the world's electricity comes from non-renewable resources?

It's more like 80%:

http://www.eia.doe.gov/oiaf/ieo/electricity.html

see Figure 61, "Fuel shares of world electricity generation".

Devonavar wrote:I challenge any of you to find a household (not commercial) kettle that requires 2000W. Such a kettle would routinely trip circuit breakers.

2000-3000W kettles are common place in the U.K.

Kernwood lists many 3KW kettles on their website.

Morphy Richards have 3.1KW kettles in their range.

We have a 3KW kettle here at home (have had several over the years), once you've used a fast boil kettle you don't go back.



Regards
Pete
(Remember we don't have 120V AC)
P.S. Our ring mains and plugs are designed for 240V 13Amps.

Devonavar wrote:Never heard of an electric shower, but if it's a large scale appliance, it probably runs off 240V and gets its own appliance outlet.

For that matter, I find those figures are quite overestimated. Many washing machines and dishwashers are powered from ordinary 120V plugs/outlets, which means they must be within the ~1800W maximum capacity of a 15A circuit breaker. In both cases, the bulk of the heat is required by the water heating element, which does not operate constantly during the cycle anyway.

I challenge any of you to find a household (not commercial) kettle that requires 2000W. Such a kettle would routinely trip circuit breakers.

The domestic electricity supply in the UK (and most of Europe) is 230V AC, so appliances can be more than twice as powerful as those in N. America while still drawing the same current. Washing machines, electric heaters etc can be up to 3KW, and most kettles here are 2200W or more.

It allows us to boil water for our afternoon tea more quickly.

/edit: sorry Pete, didn't see you were ahead of me... (having said that, it's no longer 240V AC, thanks to having to standardise with Johnny Foreigner)...

nick705 wrote:(having said that, it's no longer 240V AC, thanks to having to standardise with Johnny Foreigner)...

True, I was only referring to the fact that our current plugs/ring mains are/were designed for 240V. Having said that have you measured the line voltage recently? Bet it's more than 230V and is closer to 240V

Bring back 15A round pin plugs/sockets I say!!!..... (As do some audiophiles...)

nick075 wrote:It allows us to boil water for our afternoon tea more quickly.

And to have nicely crisp but not warmed too much crumpets to accompany said tea...


Pete

mantralord wrote:It's funny that even with all of that distributed computing power, it doesn't even touch the power of the world's best supercomputer, Blue Gene..

IBM wrote:This spring, NNSA and IBM announced that a new world record for a scientific application was set on Blue Gene by achieving a sustained performance of 207.3 teraflop

Stanford wrote:Current TFLOPS 218

Sounds like you're OS's calculator isn't getting enough juice... OMG!! You n33d one of these..


Pete

peteamer wrote: True, I was only referring to the fact that our current plugs/ring mains are/were designed for 240V. Having said that have you measured the line voltage recently? Bet it's more than 230V and is closer to 240V

Rule Britannia!!!