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Do Graphics Cards Draw Much Power When Idle?

Stuarts

Stuarts

Stuarts

Associate
Joined
31 May 2009
Posts
191
Quick question:

Do graphics cards draw much power when idle?

I am looking at getting a UPS for my system.

This one specifically

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=UP-017-AP&tool=3

APC Back-UPS ES 700VA 230V UPS (BE700-UK)

Seems to provide about 400 watts.

I will be running an Radeon 4870 x2 graphics card on my system. Which is a major power sapper.

But obviously, I won't be gaming at night, or even most of the time during the day. I bought it mainly so I have the option. But in practice I haven't been much of a gamer (maybe that is about to change!).

400 watts is obviously too low to run the system (I have a Corsair HX1000). But, I am assuming that unless I am gaming, the draw from it is quite low, and so that emergency power supply backup should be ok to run for 1 minute before it automatically gracefully shutting the PC down (ie in the event of a power outage)

Is that correct?

Or does the graphics card take a load of watts, regardless of whether or not I am gaming?
 
Last edited:
setter said:
According to this article a 4870x2 draws about 275w at idle.

http://www.pcgameshardware.com/?menu=browser&article_id=653537&image_id=862644
Click to expand...

That's almost certainly 275W for the entire system at idle ... its very difficult to measure power draw of the gfx card (or CPU etc) on its own so now most reviews quote power of the whole system ... which, after all, is probably what you're most interested in in the end. However, it does lead to confusion if you don't spot this!
 
Interesting. Thanks.

Yep. 275w at idle should be ok.

If I spot a thunderstorm I will turn off the PC. Failing that it looks like this ups could do the trick.
 
The big concern I would have with that, is if the power goes off when you using more than 400w.

That would overload the UPS and probably cause it to fail, possibly damaging it and maybe your PC.
 
The big concern I would have with that, is if the power goes off when you using more than 400w.

That would overload the UPS and probably cause it to fail, possibly damaging it and maybe your PC.
Click to expand...

Thats certainly a fair point.

However, there doesn't seem to be too many economic solutions that come in at under £200. And I don't want to spend that much.

Of course the power could go at any time, but I actually fairly rarely play games.

I think I would be fairly unlucky if it went whilst I was cranking up the graphics card, and at least it comes with surge protection built in, so hopefully it would be ok anyway (the Corsairs supposedly have something built in that helps as well)

I think it will have to do for now, until I actually get to use this PC and make some money DOING stuff on it, rather then spending all my time speccing it out and building it, which seems to be where all my time is going currently :-)
 
4870x2_power.gif


So just under 80 watts at idle.

If you want more, search xbitlabs reviews. They have the best reviews imo and include power consumption directly drawn by GPUs.
 
deshepherd said:
its very difficult to measure power draw of the gfx card (or CPU etc) on its own so now most reviews quote power of the whole system ... which, after all, is probably what you're most interested in in the end. However, it does lead to confusion if you don't spot this!
Click to expand...

I don't think it's that difficult for a very reasonable figure, surely? Power draw with graphics card subtract power draw without graphics card...?

There will not be any telling when a spike will occur in your local grid, so trying to plan your computer usage around thunderstorms is like locking the front door to stop the house being burgled but leaving the back door open.

The only problems I've ever experience with the local electricity supply were on a reasonably sunny day, with no adverse weather conditions at all. And the spike concerned blew my PSU up (somehow did not take the rest of the computer with it).

I installed a power streamer or whatever they call them (modulator?) which doesn't act as a UPS, but delivers 'clean' power to the computer, and I haven't had a problem since. It's not a UPS, but hey.
 
mrthingyx said:
I don't think it's that difficult for a very reasonable figure, surely? Power draw with graphics card subtract power draw without graphics card...?
Click to expand...

Might just about be doable this way for idle power ... but for load power if you remove the gfx card being tested then you need to have something else in there to do the graphics .... and you need to know how much power that uses and, unless it has very similar performance to the gfx card being tested, then it will cause the benchmarks to run at different speeds which could change the amount of power being drawn by the CPU (e.g. if 2nd gfx card is much slower then CPU could spend much more time being bottlenecked and consuming less power).
 
Like I said before but people decided to ignore. It is very easy to measure. You just need ammeters and voltmeters. And of course something to put load on the card. Check xbitlabs for other cards.

4890power_full.png
 
MikeHunt79 said:
It's crazy how one card can use 80W idle while? What a waste of power.

A 4670 uses around half that when benching!

4670.png
Click to expand...

Aye I agree. I have avoided the current generation of GT200 cards for that reason. They all use ridiculous amounts of power at idle once you have 2 monitors connected. I had a 280GTX for a short time and using my power meter at the wall I could see it drew 35w more power at idle than the 8800GT I had before it which for me was unacceptable.

The 4870x2 cards are equally as bad.
 
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