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Comment by dist-epoch | Hacker News Reader

More interestingly, Intel is working on 2000 W cooling solutions. Imagine that, 2000 W in a few square centimeters.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/intel-working-on-new-cooli...

I wonder if making the whole CPU package larger is another solution. Just like the best LED lighting is spread out (disc, square, linear) instead of being in the shape of a traditional light bulb. Maybe in the future we'll have A4 sized CPUs.

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It seems comical to have a CPU more powerful than a space heater people use to heat their rooms in the winter. I also wonder if it's even possible to use a 110v circuit in most houses for this, considering it would create a computer pulling atleast 2500-3000 watts, something most single outlets in a standard home can't handle.

Would be funny to start seeing people run 220v to their offices for their computer.

Some 2kW power supplies come with weird cables to handle 110V. Slightly annoying for a 230V domestic setup but 3kW from a single socket is fine in Europe. Not totally encouraged of course.

You're talking about 15amp setups in both cases, which is what I was talking about, even including the point that Americans might have to start wiring their offices with 220v just like we currently wire our kitchens and laundry rooms.

Not in Italy, it's not normal here to consume 3kW from a single socket. Most houses powerline max at 3.3kW

Almost sure that is for servers. They've been pushing density for a while now, and as four sockets per U became the new norm, data center operator had a slight Pikachu face when they saw 40-60 kW per rack.

With Intel's recent innovation in die interconnects and silicon photonics, this seems a straightforward direction to push. They're going to increase density, it's what the semi industry does.

One problem with making the package larger is the relativistic effects of longer wires.

Anyway, the idea of writing code to manipulate 2000 watts of power billions of times a second, on a desk, is kinda scary! Wow!

IBM has been pushing that envelope for quite some time, with both POWER and Z. The Telum cooling system looks scary.

https://twitter.com/PatrickMoorhead/status/15240319067944263...

In return, you get a 5 GHz base clock, but the "BMC" is two x86-based servers running Linux that, among other things, make sure cooling is working properly before applying power to the CPU/memory modules (and to shut everything down as soon as it goes off-nominal).

And, definitely, none of that gear is designed for home use.

Household circuit in US maxes out at around 1700W. I hope in future where we don't need to wire L2 charge port to a home office, just to run a faster workstation.

That can't be right, an air conditioner alone pulls more than a kilowatt.

That is right, but it's per breaker, so your air conditioner will likely be on its own breaker.

(Assuming 15A fuse, 15A * 110V = 1650W)

Here in Sweden we have 240V from the wall but our fuses are usually 10A, so 2400W per breaker (so we can run Intel CPUs without special installations ;)

Large draw appliances usually get put on a double pole breaker and a house will have many circuits.

He means the standard residential circuit (like you would plug a PC or TV into) is typically 15 amps. Larger appliances, like an AC, are dedicated circuits, usually at a higher amperage. It's not uncommon for AC to be on 30A or 60A

I live in a building renovated in 2010ish and all circuits are 20A minimum.

I recently got a new PC with i7-13700k. Paired with very good (but enormous) air cooler. When there is high CPU usage I can feel hot air coming from computer! Yes, that air cooler is almost silent (BeQuiet Dark Rock 4), but if when CPU uses 200+W that heat has to end up somewhere. Hopefuly, for development you rarely need 100% CPU. I wouldn't want anything more power hungry for my desktop.

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