this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2024
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[–] [email protected] 55 points 4 months ago (3 children)

Wait, why do they need 150 GPUs for a 1.2 megapixel display?

That's less than 1080p!

Who engineered this monstrosity?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

That's the outside. The inside is 256 million pixels.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

They say there are 16 screens inside, each with a 16k resolution. Such a screen would have 16x as many pixels as a 4k screen. The GPUs power those as well.

For the number of GPUs it appears to make sense. 150 GPUs for the equivalent of about 256 4k screens means each GPU handles +-2 4k screens. That doesn't sound like a lot, but it could make sense.

The power draw of 28 MW still seems ridiculous to me though. They claim about 45 kW for the GPUs, which leaves 27955 kW for everything else. Even if we assume the screens are stupid and use 1 kw per 4k segment, that only accounts for 256 kW, leaving 27699 kW. Where the fuck does all that energy go?! Am I missing something?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Yeah, 4k phone and 4k plasma tv don't consume same ammount of energy.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (3 children)

This is a complete shot in the dark but could the huge power draw come from needing some intense industrial cooling/airflow stuff in/on the sphere?

Edit: forgot a word

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 months ago

More likely it's the thing that generates all that heat in the first place.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago

complete shot in the dark

Man, I wanna delay the stupid edgy joke I’m making but I can’t help myself

[–] [email protected] 34 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

The big power draw is because of the sheer amount of light it dumps out. You try lighting up 54,000 square meters of LED panel to a few hundred nits like a pc monitor, and see how much power it takes.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Oh Jesus, there are 16 16K screens? I didn't read that right at all. That's completely superfluous. The Las Vegas Sphere is an affront to God.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 months ago

In the future there will be myths that we once had standards such as html but after we tried to build this sphere, god cursed us to use only incompatible proprietary protocols

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Says 16K, where’s the disconnect? (I don’t know display tech)

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Ah, you're right, that's 1.2 megapixel for the exterior, and 132 megapixel for the interior.

That's a substantial increase, but it's still the equivalent of about 16 4K screens, which absolutely does not need 150 GPUs!

Edit: No, I was wrong, this entire monstrosity is overengineered to over two gigapixels on the inside, and that's absolutely ridiculous.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 months ago

Anything most likely driving factor here?

Extreme resolution requirements, massive number of LED elements, real-time rendering and synchronization needs, complex content processing, load distribution and redundancy, future-proofing capabilities, fraudulent kickback scheme