German utility provider introduces ‘gaming electricity’ plan targeting high-consumption households, like those running multiple high-end gaming PCs

German utility provider introduces 'gaming electricity' plan targeting high-consumption households, like those running multiple high-end gaming PCs

Jowi Morales Social Links Navigation Contributing Writer Jowi Morales is a tech enthusiast with years of experience working in the industry. He’s been writing with several tech publications since 2021, where he’s been interested in tech hardware and consumer electronics.

Fomdoo As an American I assumed that would put you in a higher price tier. Even Germany isn't as ruthless as us. Reply

Zaranthos The hardware and gaming industry that focuses on bleeding edge use cases lost me long ago. I don't want my computer sucking insane amounts of power simply to play a game. If a game requires or even recommends hardware that consumes absurd amounts of power it's off my list. I stopped chasing the high end when the power requirements became absurd. I can afford it, but I just can't justify basically paying rent to my gaming PC every month. I buy AMD GPU's for a few reasons now. They're good quality, they're more power efficient, and they're cheaper than Nvidia. AMD wins every category when ranking price, power, and performance bang for buck in what I'm looking for. There are also things I like about AMD drivers and Linux support, even though I primarily game on Windows still. My view on this likely won't change unless electricity rates get cheaper. Even then things like battery backup options become problematic when you start buying 1000W or larger power supplies. It starts to feel like madness just to play a game. Reply

Vicecrow Not so sure about AMD efficiency. My system Is running with 72w idle with a RTX 5070 I have a 14700, Intel optane 280gb, a Toshiba server Nvme 1920gb, 32gigs ddr4 4000mhz and 4 akasa piranha fans. with some tweaks, Using the Intel IGPU and the Nvidia almost can push the system at my target of 200w gaming, all the time. Before the RTX 5070 I have a RX 9060XT not work with the Intel IGPU, Drivers crash try'n to push the graphics lowest power possible. From same power at 2560×1440 from AMD 60 fps to above 120fps on nvidia. My daily consume of power with this config now stays at 1.6kw/h day The new titles got around 2.5 at 3.2 kw/h day to keep the machine up 18hours Reply

bit_user Zaranthos said: I buy AMD GPU's for a few reasons now. They're good quality, they're more power efficient, and they're cheaper than Nvidia. The power-efficiency claim needs testing. Perhaps, within the same price tier, you're right. However, back when Jarred tested the RTX 4090 at different power limits, he found you could drastically reduce its power limits with relatively little impact on most games. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/improving-nvidia-rtx-4090-efficiency-through-power-limiting The key thing, in that above statement, is to look at the specific game. Those which under-utilized the GPU showed the least detriment from reducing power limits. Games which drive high utilization also tend to burn a lot of power, and will tend to suffer more from shaving the power limits. I'm honestly not trying to take a side, here. I would really just like to see some FPS/W data on different GPUs, with different games, and at different power limits. That's a lot of testing, though. So, I don't know if anyone has done it. Zaranthos said: Even then things like battery backup options become problematic when you start buying 1000W or larger power supplies. I recently had to replace a bad 750W power supply with a 1kW model, not because I needed that much power, but just because the market for premium PSUs seems to have disappeared below 1kW. I was worried this might cause an issue for my 900W/1400VA UPS, particularly with regard to inrush current, but it did not. I have APC, while a friend has a comparable CyberPower model and neither of us had issues with inrush current overloading the UPS. Going up to even higher-wattage PSUs, I expect you'd need to be very careful about UPS compatibility. Reply

nayir Fomdoo said: As an American I assumed that would put you in a higher price tier. Even Germany isn't as ruthless a Fomdoo said: As an American I assumed that would put you in a higher price tier. Even Germany isn't as ruthless as Fomdoo said: As an American I assumed that would put you in a higher price tier. Even Germany isn't as ruthless as us. They pay 2-3x more for electricity Reply

QuarterSwede How are they going to discern between gaming PCs and other high electricity applications like EVs? Reply

USAFRet QuarterSwede said: How are they going to discern between gaming PCs and other high electricity applications like EVs? They don't. it offers an electricity plan designed for high-consumption households, whether you’re running four RTX 5090 gaming PCs or charging four EVs simultaneously every day. Reply

bit_user USAFRet said: They don't. @QuarterSwede , it could hypothetically work via smart grid, where the EV charger tells the grid how much current it's using and when. Then, that could potentially be billed at a different rate. Reply

Key considerations

  • Investor positioning can change fast
  • Volatility remains possible near catalysts
  • Macro rates and liquidity can dominate flows

Reference reading

More on this site

Informational only. No financial advice. Do your own research.

Leave a Comment