Random Question: Multi-Monitor and Video Card Idle

[jackstar7]

I realize there's plenty of buzz about the incoming cards from both camps, so I figured now might be a good time to ask this:

Has either company figured out how to have multi-monitor with a single card and have the card idle properly? Or does VRAM continue to max out regardless of load and regardless of driver-set, nV or AMD or whatever...?

This is something that just bugs me and I'm wondering if anyone has managed to address it and my googling apparently came up short of any info...

Thanks.

 

[96Firebird]

Are you wondering purely for power consumption figures at idle?

Reason I ask is because TPU shows these results for idle power consumption, but it doesn't tell the reason why AMD's cards seem to use more power with multi-monitor. It could be because of the increased memory clocks with multi-monitor, like you said. This is with monitors at different resolutions, I'm not sure if the results are the same when the monitors are identical.

 

[jackstar7]

Actually, I'm looking for just low vram usage just because this was something I consistently saw as a flaw in both companies' cards, but wondered if anything had been solved. I suppose I would have to settle for lower idle power in general and go from there.

Thanks for the charts.

 

[KaRLiToS]

Quad Fire R9 290x here.

No power usage or Vram usage problem during idle.

GPU @ 300mhz and Memory @ 150mhz. Vram at 437MB

If you have a multi-cards setup, only the first card (or the one with the outpouts) might see more utilization.

 

[jackstar7]

Huh. Thanks.

I will continue to investigate. Maybe I'm just on old tech and there's an extra reason for my next upgrade to the 980ti or whatever AMD is bringing to the show.

 

[jackstar7]

I figured this out. It's the same old problem as I used to recall. It has to do with using both DVI and DP at the same time due to ramdac utilization.

My solution is to pick up a DP 2560x1440 monitor and see if I am still going to need all the extra space. 8560x1440 seems like probably too much space...


EDIT: And I was incorrect. Adding another DP monitor also sees the idle clocks run higher. I am confused by this, but will see if the issue persists when my new card eventually shows up.