lowest energy consuming video card.

[bgt]

To use with a 3700X? I am using a 2400G now and want to change to an 8 core unit.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

Lowest power consumption? That'd be a GT1030 with DDR4 which has a 20W TDP.

Be warned, the performance is nowhere near that 2400G you have now (the regular GDDR5 version is comparable). It's only adequate for general desktop use, and video decoding.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Lowest power consumption? That'd be a GT1030 with DDR4 which has a 20W TDP.

I think that a GT210 is lower...

https://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-210/specifications

Wasn't able to find GT 1030 specs on their site anywhere, not even using their search feature, or previous products. (Only goes up to 900 series.)

When I select "GTX 10 series", it's only the GTX cards, there's literally no menu option for "GT 10 series". The GT1030 has been abandoned, LOL.

 

[mohit9206]

Gt 1030 isn't abandoned, it still sold. The gddr5 version is around 70 dollars and TDP is around 30 watts i think.

 

[Insert_Nickname]

I think that a GT210 is lower...

The GT210 has a 30.5W TDP. So no. But then why would anyone use such an EOL obsolete card, which hasn't received a driver update since '16, today?

It isn't even DX11 compatible.

Wasn't able to find GT 1030 specs on their site anywhere, not even using their search feature, or previous products. (Only goes up to 900 series.)

When I select "GTX 10 series", it's only the GTX cards, there's literally no menu option for "GT 10 series". The GT1030 has been abandoned, LOL.

The GT1030 still exists. But as a non-GTX card, it just doesn't get much advertisement.

As for being abandoned, it's the same Pascal architecture as it's big GTX brothers. So as long as they get support, it gets support. The GP108 chip itself is also fairly common in laptops under the MX-brand.

 

[Seba]

 

[Seba]

https://www.geforce.com/hardware/desktop-gpus/geforce-gt-1030

 

[bgt]

Thanx for the replies, I'll go for the 1050 since the AMD cards are a bit too power hungry. I wanted to exchange my 2400G for the 3400G but the speed difference is almost non existent. Will buy a 3600 now as CPU part.

 

[Seba]

GTX 1050, while much better than GT 1030, is a 75W card.

 

[ElFenix]

None of these cards is using much power on Windows desktop if that's what you're concerned about.

 

[Stuka87]

Whats the intended usage? That's a lot of CPU to be paired with a video card that is slower than current integrated video.

It should be noted pretty much any modern GPU sits in the single watt uses less than 10W when idle in Windows desktop. They can go up if decoding video such as YouTube or the like.

Are you dealing with an undersized PSU or something?

 

[Mopetar]

Modern cards have dedicated hardware decoders so even if you have a high end card, it won’t draw much power decoding video.

Discrete cards like that are for people who don’t have an APU or onboard video and don’t want to spend money for a gaming card they won’t use for gaming.

 

[Glo.]

You can search for GTX 1050 Ti KalmX, which is 60W card, and completely passively cooled if your power budget can be blown out that much.

 

[amrnuke]

Thanx for the replies, I'll go for the 1050 since the AMD cards are a bit too power hungry. I wanted to exchange my 2400G for the 3400G but the speed difference is almost non existent. Will buy a 3600 now as CPU part.

The big question is what your PSU is.

The most power-efficient card overall is the probably the 1660ti with a peak gaming/furmark wattage of 123W and performance <10% off that of the Vega 56 at 4K.

And performance-wise it'll do things that can't be mentioned on this forum to the 1050.

If your PSU can handle a 3600 (65W) + 1660ti (125W peak) that might be the best route. And if your PSU can't handle that... I have very big questions about your overall rig-building.

 

[PingSpike]

It should be noted pretty much any modern GPU sits in the single watt area when idle in Windows desktop. They can go up if decoding video such as YouTube or the like.

Naw, I wish! The lowest I've ever seen measured on a modern card was 3 watts idle, at GTX 1050. It might have been a measurement error and I think it was a special passive cooled model. Most cards are considerably worse than that too, anywhere from 5-12 watts just idling away with a single monitor.

 

[Stuka87]

Naw, I wish! The lowest I've ever seen measured on a modern card was 3 watts idle, at GTX 1050. It might have been a measurement error and I think it was a special passive cooled model. Most cards are considerably worse than that too, anywhere from 5-12 watts just idling away with a single monitor.

Ahh, poor wording on my choice. I had intended to say 'single digit' wattage. Meaning below 10 watts. I will correct my post above.

 

[PingSpike]

Ahh, poor wording on my choice. I had intended to say 'single digit' wattage. Meaning below 10 watts. I will correct my post above.

Ahh, makes sense.

You know I was just looking around and AMD apparently has something called zero core that they came out with for the hd7000 series which would allow the GPU to drop to like 3 watts with the monitor off. Most of my AMD cards are quiet old and it seems like its broken on Windows 10. From the reviews I read it must not do much for them with the monitor on though because they aren't generally in the same ballpark as nvidia with idle power consumption.

I wonder if nvidia has anything like this.

 

[Stuka87]

Ahh, makes sense.

You know I was just looking around and AMD apparently has something called zero core that they came out with for the hd7000 series which would allow the GPU to drop to like 3 watts with the monitor off. Most of my AMD cards are quiet old and it seems like its broken on Windows 10. From the reviews I read it must not do much for them with the monitor on though because they aren't generally in the same ballpark as nvidia with idle power consumption.

I wonder if nvidia has anything like this.

When zero core came out it was a bit buggy, most of us disabled it because Windows would sometimes not wake the card up so you sat with a black screen. It was annoying. As I recall it was an issue that MS had to fix, not AMD.

As seen here, most idle wattage are quite good. However if you are using multi-monitor, then AMD cards jump up to 20-35W depending on the card. Unsure as to why.

 

[PingSpike]

So I've been building a Ryzen unraid server/htpc. One of my goals has been to keep the idle power consumption the same as my ivybridge server I'm replacing. Anyway, I have several video cards but the main one I'm going to use for the HTPC is a 1060 3GB. But the idle power seems to be disappointing. After swapping components and taking power readings it looks like its using 14w idle. That's not horrendous but its a far cry from the number I was looking to get based on reviews. I was expecting under 10 watts. I ran the nvidia-smi utility and it happily reports its using 9w. That's still higher than I was expecting and no matter how I slice it, wrong. I'm sure the number is with taking the power supply efficiency into account. Its a gold Antec power supply but even that doesn't match up. I'm actually disappointed in this, felt like I could get better.

My R7 250 DDR3 never gets better than 6watt idle. That is with the driver loaded. As near as I can figure I have zerocore working, the fan turns off with the display. But it doesn't idle any lower than when I shut its vm down. And 6 watts isn't "zerocore" IMO. Also if I installed newer drivers than the old 14.4 ones I had? It doesn't shut off the fan at all. I couldn't find any reviews where they even extensively tested this, feels like another good AMD idea that they just sort of forgot about later.

Conversely, that garbage GT710 I have seems to be low watt for dollar king still. 5watts idle with that. Of course, its actually worse than most iGPUs but it still has its niche at least.

 

[Ranulf]

Via HWMonitor, it says my asock rx570 4gb is pulling 5.4w to 6.38w with one browser window up, music app and steam minimized in win7.

 

[amrnuke]

When zero core came out it was a bit buggy, most of us disabled it because Windows would sometimes not wake the card up so you sat with a black screen. It was annoying. As I recall it was an issue that MS had to fix, not AMD.

As seen here, most idle wattage are quite good. However if you are using multi-monitor, then AMD cards jump up to 20-35W depending on the card. Unsure as to why.

As I consider moving up to a 5700 with dual 1440p monitors for work purposes (and single-screen gaming), this gives me pause... what are some workarounds that have been proposed? I wonder if one of the monitors is powered down, and the other left in sleep, if the GPU power consumption would go back to single-monitor?