nVidia Hybrid Power worthwhile?

GnatGoSplat · Post by **GnatGoSplat** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 8:22 am

I'm currently using an AMD X2 5600+ on a Gigabyte GA-MA69G-S3H. It's an old AMD 690G board, but the machine is used for everything, including gaming so the IGP is disabled. I am using an EVGA 9800GT Hybrid Power video card.

Last time I checked power consumption, I think my setup was guzzling around 125W idle with CnQ active. I'll have to recheck to be sure, but I think that's going to be close.

This machine spends several hours/day idle since it also acts as a server. Will I benefit by switching to an nForce 750a board? I am considering the Gigabyte version of this board. Is Hybrid Power all it's cracked up to be? I've seen conflicting reports that it only saved 5W at idle to saving 55-60W. If the former, I'd rather stick to my AMD board since it works well and is rock-solid stable. If the latter, that's a lot of savings and could be worthwhile. Are there specific brands/boards to avoid as far as getting Hybrid Power working flawlessly? I believe the board that Hybrid Power only had a 5W savings and the video card still got warm as though it was still powered up was an Asus board.

How are nVidia chipsets in general? I am happy with the long-term stability of AMD chipsets. I have never had any intermittent or glitchy problems whatsoever. In the past, I have used older 6100-based nVidia IGPs with some success, but with occasional annoyances like S3 suspend not working, not waking from suspend, that kind of thing. Are nVidia chipsets more refined now? I noticed their SATA and USB benchmarks seem to be much better than AMD as well.

Post by **MikeC** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 9:33 am

Hybrid Power will not give you any advantage over what you have, whatever difference will be too small for it to be worthwhile, in energy consumption or other green issues -- the main one would be the nmew board replacing the old. That would be a far greater enviro-cost than any measly power savings.

imo, the most significant energy profile change you could make is to change the 9800gt vidcard with at ATI 4830. If our sample is representative, this would save you ~16W at idle, and since your PC is in idle for many hrs, is the most important state.
http://www.silentpcreview.com/article891-page6.html

Also, what PSU are you using? Obviously PSU efficiency affects power draw.

Spare Tire · Post by **Spare Tire** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 12:17 pm

If i remember correctly, Mike, you review of hybrid power a while back said the card didn't actually turn off and was still drawing power. Is it from this conclusion that you say it isn't worth it? Perhaps that's not the way it was supposed to behave in the first place.
I read on Legit Reviews they were able to turn off the GPU and it's presence was drawing 3W over IGP alone. That was with 9800GTX.
http://www.legitreviews.com/article/708/5/

Post by **MikeC** » Tue Dec 09, 2008 1:05 pm

Spare Tire --

I think you're right. My bad. I just remembered that Larry is still exchanging emails with Asus about why hybrid power didn't work.

So take my last post with a big grain of salt. It may well be worthwhile to change to an nVidia board if HP works on it with your card. You might want to check all the reviews if anyone else got HP working.

frank2003 · Post by **frank2003** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 10:37 am

I wasn't happy with the mediocre picture quality of my PS3 on a 1080p HDTV - many if not most games/demos go only up to 720p. So I wanted to get a real graphics card as an upgrade for my HTPC and (hopefully) be able to play games at 1080p.

My first reaction was to get a card that can be powered off when it's not in use. After doing much research I arrived at the conclusion that the technology is not yet mature: ATI's PowerXpress only works on notebooks and hybrid crossfire does not mean hybrid power; Nvidia's HybridPower requires special chipset for AMD CPU and does not support Intel CPU. I also found that the next version of Windows does not natively support either company's power switching technology.

So I decided to just build a dedicated gaming machine by dusting off an old AMD 939 system and ordering a cheap yet decent performer video card - the Power Color 4830. It's on sale from newegg.com for $130 - $25MIR+shipping. The sale ends today (12/10). I would have bought the 4850 for $160-20MIR+shipping but they didn't have it in stock last week.

I would love to hear success stories from people who built a power efficient HTPC that doubles as a gaming machine.

GnatGoSplat · Post by **GnatGoSplat** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 1:58 pm

Thanks for the input, I'm a little behind the times, I had not heard of the HD 4830 card. After spending some time doing some research, I see its performance is impressive and better than the 9800GT. Had I known about it 2 months ago, I probably would have preferred buying that over the 9800GT.

It seems like IF Hybrid Power is to work correctly, it could save quite a bit more than going to an HD 4830, however. The nForce 750a and AMD 780G seem to have very similar power consumption in idle mode, and with Hybrid Power, a Hybrid Power enabled video card will only use 3-4W whereas the HD 4830 will use 18W. So if I were wanting to buy a new motherboard anyway, perhaps nVidia is the way to go.

I actually DO want to buy a new board, because I'd like to use eSATA hard drives and being able to hot-plug requires AHCI. The SB600 on my board is known for having very poor AHCI performance so if I stayed with AMD, I'd want to upgrade at least to something with the SB700. However, nVidia's 750a has better AHCI and USB performance than the SB700 so there would be other benefits of going with nVidia.

I do have a concern about stability. I've typically stuck to Intel chipsets with Intel processors and AMD chipsets for AMD processors just because that's been a winning formula for me in the past.

Post by **CA_Steve** » Wed Dec 10, 2008 5:55 pm

So far, HybridPower's promise is high, but it's execution seems meager.

It's uncertain whether NVidia is still supporting it or has walked away. (Try doing a search on their site). That said, there are 3 card mfgrs with 9800GT's branded with HybridPower on them...and at least ASUS doesn't seem to know what it means when you contact their tech support.

loimlo · Post by **loimlo** » Thu Dec 11, 2008 5:39 pm

nVIDIA abandoned HybridPower on the retail market. 8200/8300 should be the last HybridPower capable mainboard on the retail market. nVIDIA decides to take AMD's words that HybridPower will be an OEM exclusive feature hereafter.

The bottom line, however, is that HybridPower may rest on the mobile platform for a long time since OEM only wants this feature on power-restricted situation for the time being.

GnatGoSplat · Post by **GnatGoSplat** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 10:03 am

HybridPower is dead? The HybridPower version of EVGA's 9800GT just came out a few months ago (which is what I have) and I thought the 750a and 780a chipsets were pretty new.

Is it still in the current drivers?

kittle · Post by **kittle** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 4:03 pm

what i found works pretty good is a laptop with a switchable graphics card.
swtich to the integrated card to surf and be idle. When you want to play games, turn on the integrated card and away you go. But its not something the OS or driers will do for you automagicly -- its an option that must be switched on/off.

Works great for me on Lenov T500. only drawback is i have to run Vista

loimlo · Post by **loimlo** » Fri Dec 12, 2008 7:20 pm

As I said before, it's not dead yet. HybridPower is only available on 8200/8300, aka 750/780a, boards on the retail market. nVIDIA deemed that it's not worth trouble maintaing HybridPower on the retail channel hereafter. Don't you notice retail 9300 doesn't support HybridPower? Yet Apple's Mac does support HybridPower on their mobile, custom 9300/9400 boards. That's an idea that was implemented on AMD side for a long time.

You'd have no problems running HybridPower on 8200/8300 boards, but future HybridPower will be only available at OEM's request.

Spare Tire · Post by **Spare Tire** » Sun Dec 14, 2008 2:34 pm

If hybrid power becomes an oem feature, is that tied to the mobo? Then GPU makers, will they still make new hybrid power GPUs? For those people who already have an 8200/8300 board, that's the important thing to know.
Anyways, i don't know about you but when i think oem, i don't think of dedicated GPU. And those boutique gaming rigs only use off the shelf parts anyways.

loimlo · Post by **loimlo** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 7:05 pm

GTX280 runs fine with HybridPower on 8200/8300 boards. As for future 55nm GTX, nVIDIA, which abandoned 7950GX2 in the past, doesn't unveil enough information until January, 2009. Well, nVIDIA doesn't tell any info concerned with HybridPower to Add-In-Board partners, anyway.

Spare Tire · Post by **Spare Tire** » Mon Dec 15, 2008 7:34 pm

What do you mean by "runs fine". The point of hybrid power is that it "doesn't run". So does the 280 NOT run with hybrid power?

loimlo · Post by **loimlo** » Tue Dec 16, 2008 4:01 am

No, GTX280 certainly could run with HybridPower on.