Disabling a video card for power savings

wetdog2 · Post by **wetdog2** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 12:23 pm

My motherboard is fried and I want to get a 690G-based motherboard with IGP for the power savings. I was wondering, though, if I put in a 2600xt video card in the PCIe slot, could I switch between it and the IGP to save electricity (and heat)? Like how the Sony SZ laptops have a power saving switch to go from the Nvidia 7400 card to the Intel 950 video. I was thinking I could just disable it in Windows, right?

I like gaming, but probably 2% of the computer's on time is dedicated to anything 3-D intensive so using the IGP video would suit most of my needs. At the same time, I want to be able to play Bioshock.

So in a nutshell: if disabled in Windows, does power still flow into the video card? Or is there a better way to switch off the video card and just use the IGP.

Anyone have thoughts? Thanks in advance.

wetdog2

cansan · Post by **cansan** » Mon Sep 10, 2007 3:01 pm

I was wondering about this myself the other day. I think it will be possible also on AMD's newer laptop platform even better than the Sony, you will be able to switch without rebooting. I haven't heard anything about desktop though.

NX3 · Post by **NX3** » Thu Nov 01, 2007 9:31 am

I have a Gigabyte 690v motherboard running a AMD 4000 x2, 2gb mem, 160gb HD and Pioneer DVD writer. That rates at 47 watts at desktop full cool'n'quiet running which I think is pretty good. Oh and a Seasonic S12 380 PSU.

I dropped a Asus 2400 Pro 256mb PCIe card in and at desktop I only hit 51 watts. The performance of the 2400 v 690 is vastly superior as you'd expect. I've run CoD4 on both, on the 690 at 640*480 everything off it looks good still and is playable with some slow down. Between 12-60 fps. The 2400 get a pretty rock solid 40-60fps and I've not turned off the fps cap so it might go higher. That's with identical settings.

gentonix · Post by **gentonix** » Thu Nov 01, 2007 9:44 am

NX3 wrote:I have a Gigabyte 690v motherboard running a AMD 4000 x2, 2gb mem, 160gb HD and Pioneer DVD writer. That rates at 47 watts at desktop full cool'n'quiet running which I think is pretty good. Oh and a Seasonic S12 380 PSU.

I dropped a Asus 2400 Pro 256mb PCIe card in and at desktop I only hit 51 watts. The performance of the 2400 v 690 is vastly superior as you'd expect. I've run CoD4 on both, on the 690 at 640*480 everything off it looks good still and is playable with some slow down. Between 12-60 fps. The 2400 get a pretty rock solid 40-60fps and I've not turned off the fps cap so it might go higher. That's with identical settings.

Those are some interesting power readings. Out of curiosity: are you using Windows XP or Vista (or some other OS)?

NX3 · Post by **NX3** » Thu Nov 01, 2007 9:47 am

XP with SP2, all very standard stuff. I expected higher than that at desktop so was very pleased.

I forgot to say in CoD4 so a full on game (Call of duty 4) using Dx9 with the 690v I was hitting about 79w with the odd peak up to about 85w. With the 2400 I get about 83 up to 91w.

For the spec of hardware I think its pretty good at desktop cnq running. If I had less memory and not clocked to 800mhz I can get lower. I've hit 38watts but I need / want all the bits attached etc. Still 51 isn't bad at all, my old desktop was 120 at idle !

smilingcrow · Post by **smilingcrow** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 1:17 am

NX3 wrote:I dropped a Asus 2400 Pro 256mb PCIe card in and at desktop I only hit 51 watts.

Thatâ€™s impressive. Have you tested any other VGA cards in that board? Which VGA driver version are you using?

NX3 · Post by **NX3** » Fri Nov 02, 2007 2:27 am

I'm using ATI Cats 7.10 and I've not tested any other cards as I don't have any others. Hmm I've got a matrox millennium pci 4mb hehe....but I'm not testing that.

smilingcrow · Post by **smilingcrow** » Wed Nov 07, 2007 6:17 am

I just tested the Asus HD 2400 Pro and I was really impressed by the low power consumption, low cost, excellent build quality and strong feature set. I highly recommend it â€“ see here.

Tsorovan · Post by **Tsorovan** » Thu Nov 08, 2007 10:30 am

No you cannot. You have to physically remove the card or it will draw power and idle away.

nvidia's Hybrid SLI (and I forget ATI's version) will be able to do what you want though. Motherboards with Hybrid SLI support is supposed to be released sometime in 2008 last I heard.

Mohan · Post by **Mohan** » Fri Nov 23, 2007 4:18 pm

I was about to ask the same... and I thought there might be an answer out there already, just not knowing it. But it seems none of the hardware guys has thought of this much yet, and power saving is not really an issue to them yet. So even with dual boot (like two Windows installations or Linux/Windows) there is no option in any board out there for this? Damn... I could happily live with rebooting for gaming (already do for clean installations)... Too bad it's not possible to save power costs like that!