The head of Intel’s graphics division, Raja Koduri, commented at a recent event that one of his priorities is to create GPUs that are capable of offering high performance with low consumption. In his opinion, launching graphic solutions that have a consumption of 600 or 800 watts is a problem in itself because in the end limit the number of users who can use such a product.
According to the executive, when it comes to offering a high level of performance it is normal that there are no limits to the high-end, but at the same time he wonders what the definition of high-end is from the point of view of consumption, and in this sense has stated that for Intel the sweet spot would be between 200 and 225 watts.
Again, he repeated the previous argument to reinforce his opinion, since he said that this level of consumption is within the reach of a large majority of users, and the truth is that he is not without reason. For the average user, a graphics card with a consumption of 200 watts is not a problem, that is, you won’t have to consider changing your power supply and the impact on the electricity bill will be much less than what it would have with a solution with a higher consumption.
Koduri is not without a reason, the consumption of a graphics card can be a problem for the user when updating, and in the end it can limit the real market share to which said graphics card is directed. It is very easy to understand, most of the users who are within the mid-range profile have power supplies between 500 and 600 wattsfor them a graphics card with a consumption of 200 watts would not be a problem, but a model with a consumption of 600 watts or more would be totally inaccessible unless they assume a change of power supply.
However, achieving that level of consumption is not easy. The Intel executive speaks of a maximum consumption of 225 watts within the high range, but the truth is that Koduri has not been able to meet that goal either. The Intel Arc A770, which is the most powerful graphics card the chip giant has released so far, has a maximum consumption of 245 watts and it does not offer high-end performance, but is in the mid-range, surpassing the GeForce RTX 3060 by 16%. All in all, it offers greater efficiency, since it has a maximum consumption of 176 watts.
What can I say, we would all like to see a Radeon RX 7900 XTX or a GeForce RTX 4090 with a consumption of 225 watts, but it is clear that to reach a top-of-the-range level of performance this is impossible, at least for now, in fact. as I said not even Koduri has been able to achieve it with a performance typical of the mid-range. Perhaps with future architectures these giants will surprise us, but I think that in the end the trend will not change, and that higher performance will continue to be accompanied by high consumption.
