3d gaming and power saving?

[iamfang]

hi all,

i am not a native speaker, so please bear with my english.

i am thinking about building a new system lately. i hope the new system is good for 3d gaming but also power saving while it's idle. after some research, i found the "hybrid power" feature from Nvidia. i read some tests said it cost less than 50w whilte the system is idle. i am very impressed. but i also found that Nvidia no longer supports this feature any more. there will be no more products with hybrid power in the future.

so here comes my question, is it still possible to build a system capable with 3d gaming, (not some topnotch super system. a pc that could run most of the main stream games with decent fps will be enough) but also power saving?(let's say cost less than 80w while idle. )

is it possible?? any idea and suggestion will be appreciated.

 

[Vokofpolisiekar]

I'm inclined to ask why 80W?

As for power saving - almost all new PCs will go to a power saving mode when in idle. This includes the CPU and graphics card. The exact amount is a little bit harder to gauge and based on the huge possibility of components combination it's a bit hard to give you an exact answer.

What are you looking at in terms of buying? The CPU won't be such a huge contributor to power usage, but the graphics card will be.

 

[gkay09]

Well just for a start, check out the ATI 4670...It is a descent graphics card, which doesn't require additional power connectors, which implies will draw less power...

 

[Vokofpolisiekar]

Even though that is true, I doubt whether the 80W mark will be reached unless the PC goes into sleep mode on short timings. It might be possible though.

Just for interest sake: the LCD/CRT of a computer consumes way more power than one suspect.

 

[iamfang]

I'm inclined to ask why 80W?


As for power saving - almost all new PCs will go to a power saving mode when in idle. This includes the CPU and graphics card. The exact amount is a little bit harder to gauge and based on the huge possibility of components combination it's a bit hard to give you an exact answer.

What are you looking at in terms of buying? The CPU won't be such a huge contributor to power usage, but the graphics card will be.

because that's my current sys costs while idle.

i know all the new cpu could go to power saving mode while idle. so i think any 45nm cpu should be ok. i don't care about 2 cores or 4 cores. but i favor intel a little bit.


i know graphic card will be the most importan part. i am thinking about G260 or the same level card from Ati. but the power cost seems to be high on both side.

 

[Vokofpolisiekar]

So am I getting this right - you look at cost of power consumption? Still curious though.

Well, buying a CPU will give you an idea of the TDP of that CPU as it's easily obtainable.

Looking at Intel:
Core 2
Core 2 Quad
Core i7

Looking at AMD:
Phenom 2
Phenom X3 and X4
Athlon X2

I see the Athlon X2 has the 45W thermal package but I won't be able to comment on performance.

 

[Vokofpolisiekar]

Well just for a start, check out the ATI 4670...It is a descent graphics card, which doesn't require additional power connectors, which implies will draw less power...

4670

More or less what he should be aiming for. Don't know what the wattage will be when idle on lower frequency cpu's (probably not a lot).

 

[iamfang]

4670

More or less what he should be aiming for. Don't know what the wattage will be when idle on lower frequency cpu's (probably not a lot).

thank you for the link Vokofpolisiek. 4670 seems to be a choice for now. i also found a test said a system with E8400/DFI X48/MSI 4670 will cost about 115w at idle. it's close. i wonder if it could go even lower with other combo. any chance lower than 100w?

maybe without the hybrid power, a 3d gaming sys with power saving is kind of unrealistic. i don't know why they stop this feature. even not for the electric bill, shut down the graphic card in 2d mode shoud also reduce a lot of heat and noise. it's good for the whole system, isn't it?

 

[gkay09]

Well You could get these components... E7400/GIGABYTE GA-G31M-ES2L /4670...

Yes that is a low end board but it is an energy saver board...so the end system would draw less power and would cost considerably less...
If you dont want to go with the G31, better off buying a P43 or P45 chipset motherboards...they are solid mobos and are very stable...

 

[iamfang]

and for clearfication, by idle i don't mean the sleep mode. i mean the system still runing some programs in the background. like some p2p software, or just open a word doc for reading. cpu and graphic card both running in the lowest freq. and power cost of the LCD is NOT included.

 

[Vokofpolisiekar]

The problem with the idle measurements is that they don't always mention what features are used of the CPU. It's safe to say they use default settings, so the BIOS would then make use of the idle state of Intel and I would assume the laptop power scheme under windows.

There's other means of reducing more power (shutting down USB ports from within windows), but that's open for debate as to what you'll be saving.

 

[iamfang]

Well You could get these components... E7400/GIGABYTE GA-G31M-ES2L /4670...

Yes that is a low end board but it is an energy saver board...so the end system would draw less power and would cost considerably less...
If you dont want to go with the G31, better off buying a P43 or P45 chipset motherboards...they are solid mobos and are very stable...

thank you gkay09. i will put this combo to my list. still open for other suggestiongs