Hawaii: How do I Disable GPU to save Energy??

[hamlet_jones]

I live in Hawaii. The electricity costs here are enormous,
with taxes and add-in costs, the average kilowatt is
.45 cents, or about half a dollar. An HD-5770 draws more than 125w at idle!
Websurfing or office apps don't need the raw power that games do. It seems
like a big waste.

Is there an easy way to disable a GPU card in favor of
the onboard vidio for those times when I don't need
it? (other than removing the card)

Can ya turn it off at boot up (bios), then switch the DVI plug into mobo?
Use a KVM switch?

I'm building a new rig with gaming capability, and thought I might get an ASRock mobo with
on-board video, with the idea of swapping between the GPU card and the energy hungry onboard video.

Any insight would be much appreciated.

 

[sadams04]

No easy switching there... "Run with what you brung" or swap it out with a lower power card. Going with a new MB with a GPU is a good option also if you are not gaming.

 

[hamlet_jones]

Okay, I was afraid of that.

Are there conflict problems with having both; does having onboard vid hurt
the performance of an add-in GPU?

As I understand, uh, with ATI, there are some "crossfire" offerings between onboard vid and GPU. Is that worth the bother?

Thanks.

 

[BeCoolBro]

Well,because my country has a large cost per kilowatt,here's what I do:
I use a laptop and a netbook for office apps and 2d work and my watt cruncher desktop while gaming.

 

[plznote]

Yes, you might want to purchase an extra low-power computer.
It probably sucks as the money per kilowatt in Canada is about 8 cents per KW

 

[jaguarskx]

An HD-5770 draws more than 125w at idle!

No the HD 5770 does not draw 125w when it's idle. Maybe your entire system, but not the HD 5770.

Source: http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/radeon-hd5770-hd5750_5.html#sect0

 

[hamlet_jones]

Well, that makes me feel better. I was worried about what I saw on the
following chart. Maybe I read it wrong, or it's erroneous:

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/forum/hardware-canucks-reviews/24204-xfx-radeon-hd-5770-1gb-gddr5-review-20.html

 

[jaguarskx]

From the review you linked:

For this test we hooked up our power supply to a UPM power meter that will log the power consumption of the whole system twice every second.

 

[hamlet_jones]

Doh! Thanks for catching that, I certainly didn't.

Gives cause for me to ditch the contemplation
of using a 45w quad.

 

[hamlet_jones]

Best answer selected by hamlet_jones.