Kill all power to a PCI-e graphics card?

[bobthebuilder1]

The computer in question has two primary modes:

Mode A: (Working with web development, games, schoolwork)
Mode B: (Downloading/uploading files overnight, moving files on a local network)

Mode A actually requires a video feed to see what you're doing (kind of hard to play games while blind!) while Mode B is just set-it-and-forget-it busywork.

Is it at all possible for someone queue up a bit of tasks and then completely cut the power to the videocard? I'd like it to use as little juice as possible when I'm not actually using the machine.

In an effort to keep the power consumption (and thus heat) low, I'm just wondering if there is any effective way to make your GPU shutdown for the night. Someone correct me if I'm wrong, but even when you setup the power saving options in Windows, the card still is powered on, just not displaying a feed to the monitor, correct?

I sleep in the same room as the computer and any additional power/heat/cooling items translates into more noise when trying to catch some Z's. Any thoughts on this?

 

[mpilchfamily]

Best you can do is shut off the monitor. Even in standby mode that the PC puts it in it pulls power if your that concerned about the power. But no you will not be able to cut the power to the card.

 

[MarcVenice]

I think the card can be put in 2d mode where it consumes very little energy. I'd like to know more about this myself though.

 

[bobthebuilder1]

Thanks for the reply. So the energy save (turn off monitor after x minutes) under the Windows power settings is about as far as I can go? Standby won't work, as I wish to keep transferring files into the night. Does the videocard still generate frames even if it is not sending them to your monitor?

 

[bobthebuilder1]

Just a quick update:

Another user on Tom's suggested setting up a low clock frequency profile for when you are powering down for the night, then jacking back up when you need it.

 

[MarcVenice]

I wonder how much that helps though, since you can't influence the voltage that the gpu is getting and even when clocking it down it's probably still getting the same voltage.

 

[bobthebuilder1]

That's true, I hadn't thought of that. I'm still going to look into this some more, as the goal is to reduce heat as much as possible and the noise from the fans that it takes to rid oneself of that heat. This is an interesting topic.

 

[Oerekum]

Doesn't the motherboard have integrated graphics perhaps? You could use that if you had it and lose the graphics card altogether.

 

[bluemist]

I need to revive this thread because it concerns me, especially when you see troubling graphs like these:

Tom's Hardware article

A few questions:
1. Does turning off the monitor reduce the power draw?
2. Does disabling the dedicated pci-e graphics in the BIOS kill the power draw on the video card completely?
3. Some video cards need a pci-e power connector right? Does it supply power even if the video card is not in use like in #2?

I have no motherboard with integrated graphics yet so I wonder what happens when you disable dedicated graphics in the BIOS. Does the video card turn its fan on? Can anyone try this?

 

[43st]

I'd say your best bet is a low power dedicated PC, maybe Zonbu or AMD PIC with a USB powered external drive (i.e. laptop hard drive in a shell, example).

You could also build your own. If going this route I'd simply not install a graphics card. Just VNC into it from your main PC. You could probably have a dedicated box for under 10 watts.

 

[ElFenix]

Originally posted by: MarcVenice
I wonder how much that helps though, since you can't influence the voltage that the gpu is getting and even when clocking it down it's probably still getting the same voltage.

though power consumption of a cpu goes up with the square of the voltage, it also goes up with hz. so, if you can cut the speed in half, power consumption should go down by half.

 

[Peter]

Well ... power reduction on a graphics card has several options:

* Reduce operating frequency of the GPU core, and switch the on-card voltage regulator down. Very much like CPUs do these days.
* Switch off all GPU sub-units that aren't needed (3D renderer, video scaler, etc. etc., maybe even part of the on-card RAM)
* Negotiate a narrower PCI Express link. When there's not a lot of traffic, a 1-wide link does the job just as well.

All these technologies exist, and are in use already - in notebooks. They're absent from desktop machines, although the required technology exists in the GPUs and the chipsets they connect to. That is mostly because our favorite two GPU makers are marching in the exact opposite direction - and because Joe Average couldn't care less when he's buying his computer. (And when he gets annoyed by the fan noise, it's too late.)

Most people don't even want the display power save mode activated, because it takes a couple of seconds before the image comes back on.