Rumor has it that the new RTX 4000 cards could be significantly more power hungry than the current models.
The next generations of graphics cards are getting closer and the rumor mill is boiling. This time it’s about the power consumption of the new generation of Nvidia, the RTX 4000 cards. More precisely, it is about the suspected top models Geforce RTX 4080, RTX 4080 Ti and RTX 4090 (via computer base).
The two well-known leakers Greymon55 and kopite7kimi commented on the topic on Twitter. Greymon55 says the following about power consumption:
link to Twitter content
He’s not exactly sure if the numbers are for three different models or different variations of the AD102 graphics chip. The AD120 chip is expected to be installed in the RTX 4080, RTX 4080 Ti and RTX 4090. According to this, the power consumption would be in a range of 450 to 850 watts TGP (total graphics power, power consumption of the graphics card without cooling and lighting).
This would mean that the variant with the lowest power consumption would end up above the level of the most powerful model of the current generation in the form of the Geforce RTX 3090. The officially specified power consumption for this model is 350 watts.
Two leakers, one rough direction
After Greymon55’s tweet, the second leaker turned on with kopite7kimi. Although he points out in advance that these are only rumors, he basically confirms the high values in a somewhat lower form. This is what he calls 450 watts, 600 watts and 800 watts for the upcoming top models from Nvidia:
link to Twitter content
According to the rumors, the power consumption of graphics cards could more than double from generation to generation. That would also be relevant against the background of rising electricity prices for gaming on the PC.
How realistic are such consumption figures?
The leaker kopite7kimi himself gives us a first indication of how realistic this rumor is. After the Twitter account of the hardware news site Videocardz asked how credible the source was, the latter answered 50/50
:
link to Twitter content
That’s not necessarily very trustworthy. Also the hardware YouTuber Moore’s Law is Dead
A quite justified objection from him: Such a high power consumption also brings with it very high temperatures, which could pose problems for current air cooling systems. Moore’s Law, on the other hand, estimates a realistic upper limit of around 500 watts for the next generation.
On the other side is the new 12+4-pin power connector for PCI Express 5.0 graphics cards, which can deliver up to 600 watts. At the moment, however, the maximum for a cable with two 8-pin connectors is 300 watts or half that.
It is becoming more and more apparent that the power consumption with the upcoming graphics cards from Nvidia (and probably also AMD) will increase a good bit overall. It remains to be seen whether this will really be the case as much as described in the latest rumours.
You can find out more about the new GPU generations from AMD, Intel and Nvidia in these articles:
Are you looking forward to the new generation of Nvidia? How do you feel about the rumours? Could we really see graphics cards with such high power consumption? Let us know in the comments.
