ELI5- Why are Graphics cards getting so big & power hungry when other electronics are getting smaller and use less power?

Question

In the past we put graphics cards in a PC now we put a PC in a space heater

In: 14

Answer 1

They have actually been getting more power efficient and smaller as well. I assume you’ve seen the rtx 4090 but most if what you’re seeing on any modern gpu is the cooler not the actual gpu die. Those have generally been trending downward in size. The reason power usage went up is because at least as far as nvidia is concerned they resorted to doing a pretty big increase in core count to up the performance. If you did a one to one comparison to the last generation it would be more efficient. The end result though is you need a beefy cooler to keep it running at stable temps.