More Power Required for the Future?

[Yukon Trooper]

I am thinking about purchasing a 620HX PSU with the future in mind but will power requirements actually increase or might they decrease? With the advent of 65nm, soon to be 45nm and increased architecture efficiency within chips, processors etc. will beefier PSU's become something of the past? I would like to upgrade to a new generation ATI or Nvidia card when they arrive and maybe also a new generation quad core once there are more on the market. Will the new GPU's actually use less then the current 8800's for example? A real life example would be the x1900 series of cards compared to the 8800 series of cards and how we gained so much more graphics power per watt. Another example would be the C2D compared to the last generation of 90nm chips.

Will this trend continue into the next generation of hardware or should we expect more power requirements? I may as well keep my 500W Liberty if I can use it with the next gen of cards and chips especially if requirements drop. Thoughts?

[tiro_uspsss]

just before release of G80 iirc, i read somewhere that both GPU makers said that the next Gen (G80 & HD2900) would b power-hungry, the generation after would actually have a decrease... :shrug:

[Yukon Trooper]

But who knows for sure, right? I also wanted the Corsair because it has those cables that would allow me to hide them neatly inside my case. The Enermax cables are modular but they aren't as nice to work with inside the case. For me to buy the PSU though I would need to know if I would require the extra power in the future. I don't want to buy the PSU just because it will look better inside the case and might give me a bit better airflow. My temps are fine and I don't have windows on my case but I just like the idea of having a very tidy cable job. My cable job is already very good with the Enermax but the cables won't let me do a few tricky things that the Corsair would allow me to do.

May as well just wait until the hardware actually hits retail to pass judgment. I'll just upgrade my PSU then if need be. By then there might be better power supplies for the money as well.