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LOL, very funny, first I dont understand wtf is quit the pot? Then I look at your picture, clever.

Top-of-the-Line Gaming Rig(Homebuilt):$2500
Power Supply(Not Included):$400
Monthly Electric Bill:$450
The look on your wifes face as you try to explain why that little disk in your
electric meter is turning faster than the platters in your Raptor(s)RICELESS

If you have time and go to Ebay, look at some of the custom built computers. I remembered one guy has to sell his computer (a top of the line) because his wife told him to. LOL.

Btw, did you send that to Mastercard competition? I think it's good, very computer geek.

Bring on the external graphics cards.

MHz for MHz, the Nvidia and ATI GPUs are alot more powerful than the Intel and AMD CPUs.

Yes ATI and Nvidia need to take time and develop more energy efficient chips.

Why not put both GPU and CPU in one enclosure? Then if you want to watercool them it's easier.

Either that or we need a major overhaul of the current motherboard and case designs. Powersupplies are going to need venting straight up out of the case and may be long enough to fill up most cases currently available. I already say that Motherboards are two short for my needs. I want 4 RAM slots, 2 CPU slots, 2 PCI-X 16X Slots (that have space for dual-slotted GPU coolers, and don't cover any other slots), 2 PCI-X 1x slots for a SB X-Fi and one Gigabyte RAM-Drive. 2 PCI-X 4x slots for a Ageia card and one availble slot. Then of course, one PATA connector, 6 SATA2 connectors, 2 FIREWIRE connectors, 10 USB2 connectors, PS2 Mouse and Keyboard.

The thing is ATI/Nvidia won't change their policy until there is a demand for lower wattage cards. The demand right now is for speed, not lower power bills. You think people running dual 7900GTX's in SLI are worried about their power bill? I think not. When people demand more power-efficient cards and stop buying power-hungry cards, then we might see a change. Until then, it's all about speed! Then again, who knows what will happen with the DX10 cards? They make make a Pentium M style card that shuts itself down when not being used. As in, the GPU throttles back to a lower, power-saving level.

How are you going to put a ~30-40C and a ~50-70C product together? And those are pretty good temps. What kind of material would they need so that it doesn't melt when you load up a game? And you would have to incorporate so many things to fit inside one measly CPU casing... Sorry, but it doesn't sound feasible.

~Ibrahim`

First, I think you should think over before compare GPU and CPU, for they are completely different, not just MHZ. Nobody encode movies and running scan viruses by GPU. GPU are just for graphics as its name tells all. Secondly, at first CPU actually did all three jobs: processing, rendering and physics. But then thing changed because people demand more quality graphics, dedicated GPU is born. Now people wants things more realistic, there will be a Physics (PhysX is the early kind) processor.

For runswindows95, I agreed, and both ATI and Nvidia will compete on efficiency in the future when power consumption reach the limit. Nobody gonna need a powerful GPU but consume 1000W of power supply (it's like you have a microwave running 24/7)

Who needs 2 cpu lots? Why dont you understand that we need a better CPU like core 2 duo, but we dont need two sucker like pentium 4 extreme in one board. You can buy everything you said now (2 cpu lots, 2 pci x16, and 16 memory slots) in a server motherboard. It's nothing new, people think about it too, some enthusiast use Opteron for gaming (that's two opteron in one board). But it's just simply ridiculous and not worth the money to do something like that for most people.

Yeah, just pray to the Mobo fairy and she will make it for you. Also, why in the name of all things holy do you need all that for anyway? Trying to build HAL 9000?

I personally think real-time ray-tracing will be as soon as DX 11-12. Then the need for shaders might be gone completely. I heard ray-trace rendering Quake 3 in real-time took ONLY 20 CPUs. Even that level of performance will be here this decade.

The power hungry cards I expect will mature, get smaller, use less power, more stuff on one card, etc. I just really hope 1 DX10 card will use less power than 2 cards SLI.

Link please

Actually, it's better to look at how much amps the 12v rails will provide since most of the components are drawing power from those rails. RAM draws power from the 3.3v rail. The hard drives draw power mainly from the 12v rails, and maybe 3w to 5w from the 5v rails. The motherboard most likely draws power from the 3.3v, 5v and 12v rails.

It is also illuminating to lok at PS output as a function of temperature since many are rated at 25C. Johhnyguru.com and others have temperature controlled chambers for such testing. Good stuff!

It's real, it's cool, it's not new !
You got Quake 3 in full ray-trace right HERE

[/quote]

screenshots and video availble no less! Amazing lights, shadows, refraction, and reflections distroy DOOM 3 & FEAR.
Just don't expect to play it on a C2D yet.

i second that. rofl

Look guys, you dont need to buy a 680W PSU, when you only need a 550W PSU, to do the job. However, you cannot buy a PSU with a peak power output of 550W, with rails that float all over hell and back. The PSU NEEDS to be 550W continuous. Of course you have to do a little research.

I'll just about garuntee, the majority of people talking about 'bugs' and what not in current games, on whatever forum now days, because of BSoD, lockups, and the like, can be attributed to insufficient power supply. Going out and buying a $50 PSU when you spent hundreds, if not thousands on a system is never a good idea, yet, people still do it. Some people, I guess, dont realise that hard drives use power too, and that at system startup, can draw up to 3x as much power, compared to normal. Basicly, I figure, these types of people go out, work hard for the money for a new system, but are too lazy to spend 5-10 minutes using google to do the research.

You dont need to spend $500 + on 1KW PC power and cooling PSU, but you DO need to calculate how much power you're going to be using, and then research for a suitable PSU. However, there are tier 1 manufactuers in the PSU circle (even though 99% of PSUs now days are all made in China, in 1 of 12 or so country wide plants), but once in a while, you can find a sleeper by some no name branded company, for a reasonable price. Personally, I like to stick with tier 1 PSUs, Antec, Enermax, Seasonic, and PC P&C.

Since the article mentioned CPU /GPU efficiency, I feel its a little strange they didnt harp on the fact that its pretty common for PSUs to have a 25% loss of power (converting AC -> DC 25% power gets lost to heat). Some of the better ones by PC P&C, and namely Seasonic though, are closing this gap down into the teens. Best I remember seeing to date, I think was a 850W PSU by Seasonic, which had a 83% efficiency rating, no idea how well the PSU was built however . . .

By the way, modular design in PSUs right off the bat equates to ATLEAST a minimal loss in efficiency.