28,000,000 watts
That’s usually written as 28MW. I know some Americans don’t like metric much, but one of the points of metric is that you don’t ever need to write that many zeroes - you just need to use the right prefix (kilo, mega, giga, tera, etc) on the unit.
True, but 28 million watts really puts things in perspective when your average PSU is less than 1000w.
Exactly. This is literally a PC gamer article. Writing it out like that really puts it into perspective for the average reader.
That’s true.
average PSU is less than 1000w
Unrelated but I wish it was easier to find lower-wattage PSUs. My local PC store doesn’t have anything under 650W. I know modern GPUs use a lot of power, but not all PCs use a GPU! I have a home server where 400W would be more than enough, yet the smallest I could find was 550W, in stock from just one manufacturer (Be Quiet).
Way easier to compare 28MW to 1KW.
you just need to use the right prefix (kilo, mega, giga, tera, etc) on the unit.
Oh, thanks.
Bruh, it’s PC Gamer.
quick edit: Hey! Why aren’t you converting it to Joules?
I don’t know what they need so many GPUs for. There’s 16 displays inside, and the sphere itself has fewer pixels than even 1 of the internal displays. You could probably run the sphere off a laptop if you aren’t trying to do anything fancy.
Maybe they plan on doing crazy live simulations on it or something. I can’t imagine what kind of displayed image would actually use all 150 of them. Nvidia A6000 cards are damn powerful.
I guess the practicality of the decision depends on the finances. Did they actually buy the cards or were they gifted by nvidia for free advertising?
It does seem suspiciously like they picked 150 completely arbitrarily to make the project sound impressive, when they could have easily done it with 20. I’m sure a bunch of people in the middle made a bunch of money off that transaction too. Or like you said, maybe this is Nvidia doing some guerrilla marketing
You don’t know. Full stop.
My job has been to run things on GPUs for almost 10 years now. The only thing anyone practical is doing on that many GPUs is AI training, massive scientific simulations, or crypto mining. 1 or 2 of them is enough to run something like ChatGPT.
Real-time graphics it turns out don’t scale well across multiple GPUs. There’s a reason SLI has gone away for consumer GPUs. At the current ratio, each of those $3000+ GPUs is only driving 8000 pixels (assuming each led puck is being used as 1 pixel, given their size). It makes no sense other than bragging rights
Probably have a few cards running the displays and the rest of them mining some sphere-themed memecoin
The power of 21000 homes for advertising.
What’s most impressive is that it is even legal.
Or profitable
Is it? Last I‘ve heard it was bleeding money.
Makes sense. Gimmicks are gimmicks.
This way some faulty internet lore. The money losses were from a fluke of timing the opening date of operations versus when quarterly finances were reported. Big startup costs meant the first numbers looked silly until they had enough events to get steady profits. They’re doing fine now.
Internet should’ve known better too. It’s hard to lose in Vegas and the investors obviously knew what they were doing. The power costs are shocking for sure though. Yikes!
Probably because they’re not doing much with it. It’s $100/person to see the basic “Planet Earth” showing and almost $200 to see The Grateful Dead show. Previously they showed a Phish show. That’s it for options, and none of it sounds really appealing to me.
I love this kind of shit. Building things for the sake of it is worth it. Not only as just expression, which may be hubris but it’s still expression. Also entertainment, inspiration, pushing the art of engineering, and just giving people something to do, and all the good that comes with that like personal and trade growth.
A purely utilitarian life is a life only spent on survival. Not a life I want to live.
This isn’t pushing any boundaries, though. This is off the shelf technology. Anybody can do something big by throwing a shit ton of money at it. It would be pushing boundaries of tech or art if it was for instance super power efficient, or mind bending in any way. This is a fucking sphere, it’s the simplest shape and a rip off of the pyramids but less original and not even comparable in terms of durability.
Could it not be argued that building this thing now gives people a chance at looking at the power draw and attempting to make it super efficient? Like now people have a tool to test things on.
It is absolutely pushing boundaries to be driving this many pixels at a frame rate that doesn’t take minutes to refresh. I build a lot of projects with addressable LEDs and the typical hobbyist stuff chokes out when you start trying to control more than a thousand or so. This thing has 256 million pixels inside and 1.2 million outside.
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If this is something you feel strongly about, then please stop eating factory farmed meat and animal products if you havent already. It is something you personally can actually do. It helps, and it will genuinely make you feel better. You may not have much power, but using the power you do have to help the team you claim to be on instead of the other team is a massive step forward.
It helps,
no, it doesnt. despite the existence of vegans, meat production increases every year, year over year.
And there’s crime so you might as well rape. What a pathetic cop out. You’re lucky there are so many people taking care of you.
And there’s crime so you might as well rape
the claim is that by not consuming factory farmed meat, you make an impact on the amount of emissions from its production. this is not true. it is also not analogous to raping anyone.
You honestly think that factory farm emissions font change if people don’t give them money for their product? If your head was any further down in the sand, the magma would melt it.
Analogies don’t indicate a similar level of morality. They are used to explain points to people who, for some reason, are unwilling or unable to otherwise understand.
No it doesn’t, Commie
you’re cherrypicking.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/meat-production-tonnes?tab=chart&country=~OWID_WRL
What is your point?
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You came in here with your absolutist utilitarian life above all else or we all die post just to respond with this because someone suggested you to stop eating meat. Beautiful.
I don’t agree. The comment points out the single most easy and effektive move an individal without political nor financial power can make to cut personal co2-emissions with just a change of habit. It’s not about animal rights and not about your health. Us still eating meat even though we know better is an incredibly dumb waste of energy for the sake of pleasure, exactly like this shitty powereating globe.
Take a train instead of a flight. Cycle to work or take public transport instead of driving. Install a heat pump or solar in your house. There are a million things people can do to cut down their emissions that can be as effective as becoming herbivores, depending on each one’s personal situation.
Plus, I don’t have the numbers in my head but I’m pretty sure a locally grown fillet of chicken is more environmentally friendly than an avocado that has travelled across the Atlantic, so “buy local” would be probably better advice.
Yeah, so many things one should do. Yet nothing is as simple as paying for a different product next time you’re shopping your groceries.
Avocados are way less harmfull to our planet than local meat. People keep bringing this up so often it’s part of the Vegan Bullshit Bingo.
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And you are one of those “every problem on the planet is the fault of someone else other than me so I can do whatever I want with no regard for it’s affect on anyone else” people. Stay away from us if you can’t be bothered to carry your own weight, you just drag down people who actually give a shit about something other than their own immediate selfish gratification.
The comment points out the single most effektive move an individal without political nor financial power can make to cut personal co2-emissions with just a change of habit.
eating meat doesn’t emit co2
Yes it does, Commie. Fuck, am I debating 12 year old smartasses again?!
I’m not vegan, and I never said anyone should be. Factory farms are the issue, not the consumption of animal products. Get some eggs from a local farmer, no big deal, enjoy, they’re delicious. Just don’t think for an instant that you have no guilt if you are shoveling a huge portion of the cash you earn to billionaires who torture animals and destroy the planet. You are guilty if this is what you do, and no amount of idiotic anger towards vegans who point out the obvious will make you innocent. You have to actually change if you don’t want to be responsible for this. Angrily trying to shut down anyone who points out your disgusting selfish addiction won’t do you. Grow up or shut up.
We can do that, but first let’s make sure everyone on the planet has clean water first.
You sound like the people criticising NASA for spending money on science. “Who do X when Y is still an issue?”
I doubt you make that kind of prioritization with your own money.
I understand that perspective, but does it really have to be advertising?
I’d prefer if it weren’t. Though that’s not the only use for this thing.
Sure but we’re burning tons of coal to have this thing advertise minion movies, not anything artistic or worthwhile.
Worthwhile for who
Advertising? This thing is essentially a theater. Yeah, it can run advertisement but anything with a screen can do that. It’s like saying a movie theatre is for advertising.
It’s a 400 foot tall screen that’s constantly on and in view, even at night, which plays ads like 90% of the time. Calling it “essentially a theatre” is a huge understatement.
But the energy usage is quoted as peak for the entire venue - which is literally a theater / concert hall. It opened with a live U2 performance. The energy usage isn’t just for the displays, it includes all the power for the entire building, the concert speakers, heating/cooling, indoor lighting, any kitchen equipment, etc.
Horrible and should be illegal.
“Capable of drawing 28,000,000 watts of power” doesn’t tell us anything. As was noted, it should’ve been given in megawatts (28 mW) or kilowatts (28,000 kW). Clickbait aside, how many kilowatt-hours (kWh) does it actually use?
28 mW isn’t that much energy, relatively speaking. As of 2015, Forbes estimated LV uses 8000 mW on an average summer day.
The potential is impressive. I doubt it pulls anywhere near that. Unless I did my math wrong, this seems sensationalist.
Just Fyi, mW is milliwatts, and MW is megawatts. Agreed though, I doubt it draws that much day to day.
I don’t get it, are they implying that each GPU can draw 200kW? a home is like 10 max. Wtf is a gpu that can consume more power than 20 homes? Mine at home draws peak 300W…
Each of those GPUs feature over 10,752 cores, 48 GB of memory and have a 300 W TDP, for a grand total of 1,612,800 cores, 7,200 GB of GDDR6 memory, and a potential maximum power draw of 45,000 W at full tilt (via Wccftech).
ok, monster gpus, got it.
Add a solar array and battery bank, a you might even have electricity left over. It’s in the desert after all.
allow me to remind you about ✨opportunity costs ✨
Still a waste of energy because that could be used for the general grid
I wouldn’t say entertainment is a waste of energy even if there are nobler uses for the power.
Like those ass massaging power chairs.
Advertising may be entertaining but it’s not entertainment
I dunno man. You ever see the infomercials for the magic bullet, or the slapchop?
Fetticini
Linguine
Martini
Bikini.
You’re gonna love my nuts!
I’m in a good mood all day
It may be entertaining, but it’s not entertainment.
Here’s a link. You can go inside of it and it’s essentially a huge concert venue. It’s clearly entertainment.
…Las Vegas Sphere—a gigantic spherical entertainment arena sitting at the heart of Sin City…
I think he means the outside
Using the max power use of a video card to math this is ridiculous. It’s not at full TDP pushing this content. They aren’t playing max FPS 3D raytraced gaming, they’re playing videos.
What.
The article says that, for the GPUs, they can have a “maximum power draw of 45,000 W at full tilt”.
The 28 million W comes from the full system, and surely the massive displays, LEDs and eventually sound system makes up the bulk of that, the gfx cards are a rounding error…
Ok, so it’s “capable of drawing” enough power for 20,000 homes in the area. How much does it actually use day to day? Does it dim at night and brighten in the daytime to keep those ads rolling in the sunshine?
Might as well just give up on the earth right now I guess
someone pay to put the Lemmy logo on it, i heard there was a way to pay for an image to show up
Useless
Shame
That pretty much describes all of Vegas.
At every stage of it’s life cycle; the Sphere has been the dumbest thing imaginable
And because some rich people got scammed into buying in now everyone has to advertise it
The whole uses lots of energy therefore bad argument is complete bullshit. Energy usage is directly proportional to technological development and technology is effectively human evolution.
Good luck, you are talking to people who think that if the billionaires passed out all their money to everyone, then we would all be able to afford way more stuff. They have no idea that more cash doesn’t mean way more products appear. Supply and demand is such a simple concept, but to them, it might as well be rocket science.
Imagine being so naive as to believe massive wealth hording deprived others! What turkeys! Amirite?
Imagine if you will that there are 5 items to be had, everyone wants them. Everyone except for the evil rich man has 10 tokens. The evil rich man has a billion tokens. Right now people are willing to sell an item for 4 tokens. One day the people kill the evil rich man and spread out all his money evenly. There’s still 5 items! They just go up in price! The rich man’s blood doesn’t create more items! It isn’t complicated. It’s very simple.
You’ve got to be dumber than dogshit to not realize that unregulated CAPITALISM empowers those with CAPITAL at the expense of those without it. That’s the whole fucking point. Your dumbass example ignores an entire academic discipline’s worth of understanding, backed by empirical observation. JFC.
What system ever worked better? What do you compare how good standard of living should be to? The past? Well guess what, we are all hell of better off than the wealthiest 100 years ago. Do you just imagine a much better world than we have now and decide that you have somehow developed a system to get there and not enough people want it? Wow, you must be a genius to have outsmarted everyone across all cultures!
I’m gunna guess no. You don’t have an almighty better system, you’ve just fallen for the trap of thinking that nothing is connected. You think you can have all the benefits of systems you don’t like while having none of the connected realities. You are like a child putting whiteout all over their homework to make there be no questions so they always get 100%. Eventually, you will grow, realise people are trying their hardest, we have ways to improve and we are working on them. What doesn’t help is spoiled teenagers complaining that they have to do chores while saying their parents are mean because they won’t always buy them every new video game. Burning everything down that gave you everything you live won’t help. Ever.
Ok but the way I see it there are 100 people and 1000 tokens. Instead of every person getting 10 tokens, one guy has 998 tokens and everyone else argues over the remaining 2. Would killing the one rich guy not free up some tokens for the rest of us?
Yes, it frees up tokens, but it doesn’t make there be more items. As a result, people pay more for the items that do exist. It is the same as people saying the government should print a bunch of money to end poverty. They have the machines. They just don’t want us to have money, they could just print us all into being billionaires, and we could all live happily ever after!
I see what you’re saying, the tokens represent access to a finite amount of resources and creating more tokens won’t create more resources. I get that.
But if the problem isn’t with the amount of resources but with their distribution, then redistributing the existing tokens out of the hands of the greedy hoarders must help the rest, mustn’t it?
Edit: I can’t believe I’m sitting here arguing with someone on the goddamn Internet. Must be out of my damn mind
Yeah, so if bezos is actually eating 50,000 peoples worth of food every day, then splitting up his money/food would make a whole lot more people be fed. He doesn’t seem very fat to me, though. I do realise that he has a personal jet and uses lots of fuel and energy, much more that the average person. Guess who uses more energy/resources than him, though? The number of people born in a single hour. Those people far exceed his resource usage. So we could kill him and spread out all his money, but if there is really such an extreme shortage of resources, then this would be like throwing out a handful of water instead of plugging massive gushing leaks in the boat.
Now you imagine that the rich man undermined democracy and the rule of law, monopolized industries, and charged everyone 5 tokens a year for basic necessities.
I don’t think it’s everyone else who has a child’s understanding of economics.
And yet somehow despite all this, nearly everyone is living a much better standard of life than they would have 50 years ago, land we all far excited the kings of 200 years ago. We are rapidly progressing due to our extradoniary ability to work together. Complaining that this beautiful system of cooperation isn’t working as fast as you imagine does nothing.
Who’s they? Are you schizophrenic?
The same people that think energy use is a bad thing are the people that think that if we pass out all the billionaires money, then we can all have way more value. They are teenagers or people who never learned anything beyond what they teach in middle school. They think their gut instinct must be fact, so they spew it over and over. I’m sure you’re not one of them.
Anti-rich/billionaire/capitalism agenda is quite widely subscribed to by a large amount of Lemmings
So how is the total power over 500x that of the GPU power? If it’s all LEDs, that thing must get brighter than the damn sun.
Funny enough you can barely see it during the day
