Which new AMD 7000 have the really low power standby?

[JoeMcJoe]

Which new AMD have the really low power standby?

I read where they go as low as 3 Watts in standby, is it the whole 7000 series or just a specific model?

 

[wahdangun]

yes all HD 7000 have that feature, its called long standby.

 

[Concillian]

It's when the screen is blank, so you need to set your screensaver to display a blank screen, then any of the 7 series GPUs will go into long standby.

 

[JoeMcJoe]

thanks!

 

[Homeles]

yes all HD 7000 have that feature, its called long standby.

All GCN based HD 7000 cards, to be exact. There are rebranded 7xxx parts that do not have the feature.

 

[pieguy]

It sounds great, but my 7950 causes my system to freeze when I try to use this feature.

 

[Granseth]

It sounds great, but my 7950 causes my system to freeze when I try to use this feature.

How do you activate this feature?

My card manages it's power states by itself, and can't seem to find a handle to activate/deactivate this feature in the control panel.

 

[JoeMcJoe]

All GCN based HD 7000 cards, to be exact. There are rebranded 7xxx parts that do not have the feature.

What do you mean GCN based cards?

How do I tell which card has the power feature?

 

[-Slacker-]

the hd7900, 7800 and 7700 series are based on the 28nm gen core next architecture, while the 7600 and 7500 are rebadges of previous gen chips, still built on 40nm.

 

[pieguy]

How do you activate this feature?

My card manages it's power states by itself, and can't seem to find a handle to activate/deactivate this feature in the control panel.

It is called Powerplay and it is managed by the card, I don't think there is any control panel option or toggle anywhere to control this feature. I read one suggestion that installing Afterburner and enabling unofficial overclock mode would disable Powerplay.

Edit: I'm also confusing my terms a little bit, ZeroCore Power is what AMD calls this technology that actually shuts down the GPU when the monitor goes into standby. Powerplay, ZeroCore Power, Powertune...

 

[jrocks84]

It is called Powerplay and it is managed by the card, I don't think there is any control panel option or toggle anywhere to control this feature. I read one suggestion that installing Afterburner and enabling unofficial overclock mode would disable Powerplay.

Powerplay is what limits the power draw when at maximum power, it isn't what is being talked about in this thread.

EDIT: NVM I was thinking of something else

 

[JoeMcJoe]

I will get a 7770 card then.
Can't find one that has dual DVI though, I'll have to use a different cable.

 

[MonkeyK]

Has anyone seen the results of someone using a 7000 series card with Virtu? I recall that the Anandtech review showed no great benefit for the 6000 series cards.

 

[pieguy]

Powerplay is what limits the power draw when at maximum power, it isn't what is being talked about in this thread.

http://www.amd.com/us/products/technologies/ati-power-play/Pages/ati-power-play.aspx

"AMD PowerPlay™ technology is designed to enable power saving profiles that help reduce power consumption when the GPU is idle or in minimal use in comparison to previous AMD products. This dynamic power management enables the GPU to automatically adjust power between low, medium and high states for a tremendous power efficiency advantage. For example, when receiving and composing emails little demand is on the GPU and it runs in a low state, whereas when gaming, there is high demand on the graphics engine and the GPU runs in a high state."

 

[Granseth]

It is called Powerplay and it is managed by the card, I don't think there is any control panel option or toggle anywhere to control this feature. I read one suggestion that installing Afterburner and enabling unofficial overclock mode would disable Powerplay.

So your computer freezes every time you leave your computer inactive and your card enters a reduced power state?

 

[BFG10K]

So your computer freezes every time you leave your computer inactive and your card enters a reduced power state?

No, why would it freeze? The GPU just doesn’t output anything and only uses enough power to not disappear from the OS. The rest of the system continues as normal.

 

[Granseth]

It sounds great, but my 7950 causes my system to freeze when I try to use this feature.

No, why would it freeze? The GPU just doesn’t output anything and only uses enough power to not disappear from the OS. The rest of the system continues as normal.

If you read my answer into the context of the original quote it gives more meaning. I'm just curious if his computer freezes every time it idles or if he was able to force the GPU to power down.

 

[pieguy]

So your computer freezes every time you leave your computer inactive and your card enters a reduced power state?

If I leave my computer idle and the monitor goes into standby/shuts off then my system freezes. The system is not going into "sleep mode", it's just the monitor powering down. So I have set my monitor to stay on all the time. Sometimes I turn the monitor off by actually hitting the power button, this does not freeze the system.

I haven't found a fix yet. Hopefully a new driver will fix it. ZeroCore Power technology is what actually shuts down the GPU when the monitor shuts off in the 7900 series and Powerplay adjusts the voltage/frequencies depending on what the GPU is doing so I have to imagine that these technologies work together in some way so both could be contributing to my problem.

One thing I've just thought of, the Sapphire 7950 OC Edition (what I have) actually runs by default at a slightly lower voltage than other 7950's. Maybe the combination of Powerplay adjusting the voltage and ZeroCore shutting off the GPU with this decreased voltage somehow crashes the system. I don't understand it all very well so maybe it doesn't work this way, but I'll have to try upping the voltage a little. It wouldn't explain why other people with different cards are having the same problem.

 

[Granseth]

There are a few bioses available on the net. I don't know if 7950 have the bios switch, but if it has you can try an alternative bios and see if that fixes it.

 

[kalrith]

It's when the screen is blank, so you need to set your screensaver to display a blank screen, then any of the 7 series GPUs will go into long standby.

If you're talking about the blank-screen screensaver, then I don't think this is correct. For the blank-screen screensaver, the graphics card sends an all-black screen to the monitor, but the monitor doesn't shut off. To confirm this, compare the blank-screen screensaver to the monitor being off. The former is grayish, and the latter is pure black devoid of any light.

If you wanted to do this, then you'd set no screensaver and have the monitor shut off after ~5 minutes.

 

[Martimus]

It wouldn't explain why other people with different cards are having the same problem.

Who is having this problem? I haven't heard about this before.

Has anyone else had this issue? Unfortunately, due to past viral marketing attempting to downplay competitors, I can't just trust one person on a forum that I have no experience with before. I am not saying that he is lying, only that I have reason to be wary of this without any sort of back-up from anyone else I can trust.

I just tried google-ing it, and I didn't find anything on this issue. Beyond that I don't understand what the problem is. My monitor also turns off when I am away from it for a while. Are you saying that your entire computer shuts off when you leave it running? If that is the case it doesn't sound like it has anything to do with your video card, but likely your OS power settings.

 

[soccerballtux]

What do you mean GCN based cards?

How do I tell which card has the power feature?

Gamecube Nintendo?

 

[pieguy]

Who is having this problem? I haven't heard about this before.

Has anyone else had this issue? Unfortunately, due to past viral marketing attempting to downplay competitors, I can't just trust one person on a forum that I have no experience with before. I am not saying that he is lying, only that I have reason to be wary of this without any sort of back-up from anyone else I can trust.

I just tried google-ing it, and I didn't find anything on this issue. Beyond that I don't understand what the problem is. My monitor also turns off when I am away from it for a while. Are you saying that your entire computer shuts off when you leave it running? If that is the case it doesn't sound like it has anything to do with your video card, but likely your OS power settings.

I don't know how better to explain it. Yes, the entire computer is locked up and the monitor won't come back on. No, it's not in sleep mode.

Skeptics are funny. It's laughable that you even bring up viral marketing. I have a Sapphire 7950 and besides this annoyance it is a freakin AWESOME graphics card and I'd buy it again. Here's a few nuggets of research for you though:

http://hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=1671423
http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2226385&highlight=

The symptoms seem to manifest themselves a little differently between users but it all seems to be related to the monitor powering down. I'll check the OS power settings like you suggested but I can't think of what would cause this...

 

[pieguy]

Gamecube Nintendo?

Haha, I always think of Gamecube Nintendo when I see GCN.

 

[VulgarDisplay]

My 7970 often times refuses to wake up from sleep because of the zero core tech in these new cards. It's getting really annoying. Not to mention 12.2 pre certs dropped me from 80+fps in bf3 down to about 5fps.