GPU Power Consumption Question

[sybaris]

OK another daft question.
Lets say I buy a graphics card that is all new and shiny and the latest 'must have'.
Some reviews say its power hungry and for simplicity it consumes around 300 watts (im guessing per hour).
Does this mean it constantly draws that amount of power, for example if I am
streaming or working as well as gaming?

or

Does that mean it would draw that amount of power when its pushed to its limits ?

 

[sybaris]

So the GPU won't constantly be clocking up £££ on my electricity bill if I am not intensely gaming?

 

[sybaris]

This. Modern GPUs will use approx 5-15w on idle, depending on how many screens/the resolution/refresh rate you're pushing. The rest of your machine will vary however, depending on what it is/what you're doing.

Also, watts isn't a unit of measure in the way you think it is, watts just refers to power and has no link to time, you're thinking of watt hours (Wh) which will relate nicely to the Kwh you are billed by.

yep that's what I was thinking

 

[sybaris]

Well I just discovered that my ancient Radeon R9 290x uses between 275 and 315 Watts on full load.
Kinda puts things in to perspective. This card is 8 years old, I guess efficiency has improved over the years and now
with more powerful cards power consumption is naturally increasing again.

I did chat with a 1st line Nvidia techie who believed the card consumes 290 Watts all the time even at idle or low loads.

 

[sybaris]

well as long as its not all the time at peak. 2D stuff should drop that down.

 

[sybaris]

but it heats the room well

Yep it can get a bit toasty under the desk

 

[sybaris]

So I put this question to Nvidia's tech support.
How much power does the 3070 Ti draw when its no being used for graphic intensive work such as being used for apps like Office or surfing the internet?
1st answer. It needs 290 watts to run.. (Thats it)

I asked again.
They gave me a link to 2 non existent pages and said look at 3rd party data.
They also advised that you cant run their card along side AMDs ....huh!?! what the ?

Either they are clueless and don't know about their own products or they don't want to tell me.

So I broke it down to very simple words and asked them once more what consumption I could expect while basic stuff.

We will see what gibberish they reply with this time