It is not like CPU aren't getting higher wattage as well. Both AMD and Intel have roadmap for 800W CPU.
At 50-100W for IO, this only leaves 11W per Core on a 64 Core CPU.
At 50-100W for IO, this only leaves 11W per Core on a 64 Core CPU.
Apparently we still have room, as long as you don't run anything else on the same circuit. :)
And even then, even if you do run something 24/7 at max wattage, it's definitely not guaranteed to start a fire even if the wiring is bad. Like, as long as it's not egregiously bad, I'd expect that there's enough margin to cover up less severe issues in most cases. I'm guessing the most danger would come when it's particularly hot outside (especially since then you'll probably have a lot of heat exchangers running.)
I've definitely seen my share of scary things. I have a lighting circuit that is incomprehensibly wired and seems to kill LED bulbs randomly during a power outage; I have zero clue what is going on with that one. Also, often times opening up wall boxes I will see backstabs that were not properly inserted or wire nuts that are just covering hand-twisted wires and not actually threaded at all (and not even the right size in some cases...) Needless to say, I should really get an electrician in here, but at least with a thermal camera you can look for signs of serious problems.
I only have a PhD from YouTube (Electroboom)
If you actually had an electrician do it, I doubt they would've installed a breaker if they thought the wiring wasn't sufficient. Truth is that you can indeed get away with a 20A circuit on 14 AWG wire if the run is short enough, though 12 AWG is recommended. The reason for this is voltage drop; the thinner gauge wire has more resistance, which causes more heat and voltage drop across the wire over the length of it, which can cause a fire if it gets sufficiently hot. I'm not sure how much risk you would put yourself in if you were out-of-spec a bit, but I wouldn't chance it personally.
However! This strategy only works if the outlet was the only one on the circuit, and _that_ isn't particularly common.
(Another outlet type I've seen: I saw a NEMA 7 277V receptacle before. I think you get this from one phase of a 480V three-phase system, which I understand is ran to many businesses.)
Oddly, 14-50 has become the most common receptacle for non-hardwired EV charging, which is rather wasteful since EV charging doesn’t need the neutral at all. 6-50 would make more sense there.
1: when an uncle stops by for a visit with his RV he can plug in.
2: the other outlets in your garage are likely on a shared circuit. The 14-50 is dedicated, so with a 14-50 to 5-15 adapter you can more safely plug in a high wattage appliance, like a space heater.
2 is something I never thought of, I’ll have to keep that in mind.
If you own the house, sure. Many people don't.
I don't remember whether he ran another wire though. It was 5 years ago. Maybe I should not be spreading this anecdote without complete info.
He was a legit electrician that I've worked with for years, specifically because he doesn't cut corners. So I'm sure he did The Right Thing™.
Unless you performed the upgrade yourself or know for a fact that the wiring was upgraded to 12 gauge, it's very risky to just upgrade the breaker. That's how house fires start. It's worth it to check. If you know which breaker it is, you can see the gauge coming out. It's usually written on the wire.
> * Unless otherwise specifically permitted elsewhere in this Code, the overcurrent protection for conductor types marked with an asterisk shall not exceed 15 amperes for No. 14 copper, 20 amperes for No. 12 copper, and 30 amperes for No. 10 copper, after any correction factors for ambient temperature and number of conductors have been applied.
I could've sworn there were actually some cases where it was allowed, but apparently not, or if there is, I'm not finding it. Seems like for 14 AWG cable the breaker can only be up to 15 amperes.
New homes are probably worse than old homes through. The wires a just chucked in the space been the outer and inner walls, there's basically no chance of replacing them of pulling new ones. Old houses at least frequently have piping in which the wires run.
In power cost? no
I'm literally any other way? also no
It's often used for things like ACs, Clothes Dryers, Stoves, EV Chargers.
So it's pretty simple for a certified electrician to just make a 240v outlet if needed. It's just not the default that comes out of a wall.
https://appliantology.org/uploads/monthly_2016_06/large.5758...
Two phase power is not the same as split phase (There's basically only weird older installations of 2 phase in use anymore).
"The US electrical system is not 120V" https://youtu.be/jMmUoZh3Hq4
It'd be all new wire run (120 is split at the panel, we aren't running 240v all over the house) and currently electricians are at a premium so it'd likely end up costing a thousand+ to run that if you're using an electrician, more if there's not clear access from an attic/basement/crawlspace.
Though I think it's unlikely we'll see an actual need for it at home, I imaging a 800w cpu is going to be for server class CPUs and rare-ish to see in home environments.
I got a quote for over 2 thousand to run a 24v line literally 9 feet from my electrical panel across my garage to put a EV charger in.
Opening up an actual wall and running it to another room? I can only imagine the insane quotes that'd get.
I’m getting some wiring run about the same distance (to my attic, fished up a wall, with moderately poor access) for non-EV purposes next week and the quote was a few hundred dollars.
running to another room will be done usually (at least in usa) through attic or crawlspace. i got it done a few months ago to have dedicated 20A circuit (for my rack) in my work room. cost was around 300-400 as well
Honestly I wouldn't expect to pay less than $1000 for the job w/o any markups.
I've gotten multiple quotes on running the 240v line, the labor breakdown was always over $400 alone. Just having someone show up to do a job is going to be almost $200 before any work is done.
When I got quotes from unlicensed people, those came in around $1000 even.
another thing, which is good long term is to a find a local electrician (plumber, etc) who doesn't charge service calls and have reasonable pricing.
no idea about handyman pricing. never used any. for electrical/water/roofing i prefer somebody who is licensed/insured/bonded/etc
We rarely use 16A but it exists. All buildings are connected to three phases so we can get the real juice when needed (apartments are often single phase).
I'm confident personal computers won't reach 2300W anytime soon though
16A is fine, for most things. 10A used to be kind of ok, with the old IT net and old-style fuses. Nowadays anything under 16A is useless for actual appliances. For the rest it's either 25A and a different plug, or 400V.
On new installations you can choose 10A or 16A so if you're forward thinking you'd go 16 since it gives you another 1300 watts to play with.
Speak for yourself. I’d love to have that much computer at my disposal. Not sure what I’d do with it. Probably open Slack and Teams at the same time.
Too bad it feels like both might as well be single threaded applications somehow
The newer circuits in the house are all 16A, but the old ones (very old) are 10A. A real pain, with new TN nets and modern breakers.
Especially a special PDU: https://www.fz-juelich.de/en/newsroom-jupiter/images-isc-202...
And cooling: https://www.fz-juelich.de/en/newsroom-jupiter/images-isc-202...
On the consumer side of things where the CPU's are branded Ryzen or Core instead of Epyc or Xeon, a significant chunk of that power consumption is from the boosting behavior they implement to pseudo-artificially[0] inflate their performance numbers. You can save huge (easily 10%, often closer to 30%, but really depends on exact build/generation) on energy by doing a very mild undervolt and limiting boosting behavior on these cpus and keeping the same base clocks. Intel 11th through 14th gen CPU's are especially guilty of this, as are most Threadripper CPU's. you can often trade single digit or even negligible performance losses (depends on what you're using it for and how much you undervolt/underclock/restrict boosting) for double digit reductions in power usage. This phenomenon is also true for GPU's when compared across the enterprise/consumer divide, but not quite to the significant extent in most cases.
Point being, yeah, it's a problem in data centers, but honestly there's a lot of headroom still even if you only have your common American 15A@120VAC outlets available before you need to call your electrician and upgrade your panel and/or install 240VAC outlets or what have you.
0: I say pseudo-artificial because the performance advantages are real, but unless you're doing some intensive/extreme cooling, they aren't sustainable or indicative of nominal performance, just a brief bit of extra headroom before your cooling solution heat-soaks and the CPU/GPU's throttle themselves back down. But it lets them put the "Bigger number means better" on the box for marketing.
Boosting from 4 to 5,5.5 ghz for that brief period shaves a fraction of a second - repeat that for any similar operation and it adds up.
The point isn't that there isn't a benefit, it's that you start to pay exponentially more energy per 0.1GHz at a certain point. Furthermore, AMD and Intel were exceptionally aggressive about it in the generations I outlined (AMD would be 7000 series ryzens specifically), leading to instability issues on both platforms due to their spec itself being too aggressive, or AIB partners improperly implementing that spec as the headroom that typically exists from factory stock to push clocks/voltages further was no longer there in some silicon (some of it comes down to silicon lottery and manufacturing defects/mistakes (Intel's oxidation issues for example) but we're really getting into the weeds on this already)
And to clarify: I'm talking specifically of Intel turboboost and AMD's PBO boosting technologies where they boost where they boost well over base clocks, separate from the general dynamic clocking behavior where clocks will drop well below base when not in (heavy) use.
They're small and efficient, that means they can pack large numbers of those into small spaces, resulting in a similar large power draw per volume occupied by equipment in the DC. This is especially true with Apple's "Ultrafusion" tech which they're developing as quasi-analog to Nvidia Grace (Hopper) superchips.
And yes, they’re packed densely.
Changing settings can lead to stability issues no matter which way you push it frankly. If you're don't know what you're doing/aren't comfortable with it, probably not worth it.
Switch is designing for 2MW racks now.
A computer is becoming a Home Appliance in the it will need 20A wiring and plugs soon, but should move to 220/240v soon anyway (and change the jumper on your standard power supply).