Re:Nvidia announces next-gen RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 GPUs
by ryao on Wednesday January 08, 2025 @06:01AM
(#42632946)
It is the same function on different time scales. If you had a big enough capacitor, you could achieve the same thing. Not coincidentally, the capacitors in PSUs are huge, although not battery sized in terms of capacity. The purpose of the capacitors in the PSU is to keep things powered during a power outage to allow for a UPS to switch to battery. The technical term for this is PSU hold up time.
[ Parent
| on HN ]
Re:Nvidia announces next-gen RTX 5090 and RTX 5080 GPUs
by SequoiaHope on Wednesday January 08, 2025 @01:08PM
(#42636807)
I consider smoothing out high frequency power fluctuations and providing power over a period of minutes that exceeds the capacity of the wall plug to be conceptually two different functions, even if they have similarities.
You’re right that a large enough capacitor could do that, and I’ve worked with high voltage supercapacitor systems which can provide tens of watts for minutes, but the cost is so high that lithium batteries typically make more sense.