The first salvo of RTX 50 series GPU will arrive in January, with pricing starting at $549 for the RTX 5070 and topping out at an eye-watering $1,999 for the flagship RTX 5090. In between those are the $749 RTX 5070 Ti and $999 RTX 5080. Laptop variants of the desktop GPUs will follow in March, with pricing there starting at $1,299 for 5070-equipped PCs.
Actually the National Electric Code (NEC) limits loads for 15 Aac receptacles to 12 Aac, and for 20 Aac receptacles 16 Aac iirc because those are the breaker ratings and you size those at 125% of the load (conversely, 1/125% = 80% where loads should be 80% of the break ratings).
So with a 15 Aac outlet and a 1000 Wac load at minimum 95% power factor, you’re drawing 8.8 Aac which is ~73% of the capacity of the outlet (8.8/12). For a 20 Aac outlet, 8.8 Aac is ~55%% capacity (8.8/16).
Nonetheless, you’re totally right. We’re not approaching the limit of the technology unlike electric car chargers.
The NEC limits CONTINUOUS loads to 80%, not intermittent loads. Continuous loads are things like heaters, AC units, etc. Things plugged into the wall are generally not considered continuous loads, so your breakers in a residential home are usually not derated, and receptacles never are from what I’ve seen. (Although it could be argued that a gaming computer would be a continuous load, as it runs 3+ hours for many people, but there’s still no electrician that would treat it that way, probably ever, unless it was some kind of commercial space that rented gaming seats or something. Either way it would be planned in advance)
The rule that you’re describing is for the initial planning of the circuit. It’s for the rating of your wires and overcurrent protections, which is done at the time of installation, based on the expected continuous and intermittent loads. For residential planning nobody treats a standard branch circuit for wall receptacles as somewhere you’d derate, so your 15A circuit is a 15A circuit, you don’t need to do any more math on it and derate it further.
You could make the argument that people with 5090s do run their PCs longer than 3 hours since those folk are more prone to longer bouts of gaming to feel like they’re returning on their expensive investment. And as the capabilities of our PCs become more and more robust, it will likely mean that people will more and more need to consider whether the circuit they’re plugging into will take the load they’re giving it.
Doesn’t hurt to plan for the future regarding building wiring, since most tech folk do so regarding their PC builds.
But, up on further inspection… I may be inclined to agree with you. See this thread from licensed and qualified professionals in the space.
It seems that homeowners are given a special class of immunity when it comes to manifesting hazards associated with their use of electricity. Whether or not that immunity should be granted, given that improper use of electrical equipment in a household can lead to fires and cause undue harm to the community at large, I think is up for debate.