How build a gaming pc that doesn't use much power when doing office work?

October 29, 2009 8:40 PM

I want to build a pc with a powerful display adaptor for gaming, but that doesn't waste energy when I'm just doing office work. Any suggestions on how to do this? (multiple adaptors? software?)
posted by Pres to computers & internet (5 answers total)

Modern electronics uses power when it's working, and doesn't when it isn't. If your powerful display adaptor is just doing normal display for Windows, it won't heat up much and it won't use much power.

In other words, don't worry about it.
posted by Chocolate Pickle at 8:42 PM on October 29, 2009 [1 favorite]

If the adapter isn't running 3D rendering, it's not using much power at all. Power is consumed on by activity (state changes within flipflops and long routes in the silicon), which means if it's not doing anything, it's not sucking current. The manufacturers are also pretty clever with clock gating and stuff like that, so when idle (running Windows without the shiny 3D rendering interfaces seen recently), it will use very little power.

When you run a game, you will probably hear its fan kick its speed up a notch, indicating higher temp due to increased power dissipation.
posted by polyglot at 8:55 PM on October 29, 2009

Seconding Chocolate Pickle and polyglot: 3D hardware is getting better and better and dropping idle power usage. See, for example, this recent test of the ATI Radeon HD 5870 by Tom's Hardware.
posted by thack3r at 9:08 PM on October 29, 2009

I do know that NVIDIA cards have a feature called CoolBits, that you can enable. Then you can control the clockspeed and power consumption a little bit better. The automatic controls are not bad, either.
posted by krilli at 11:35 PM on October 29, 2009

The new 5xxx series by ati do an awesome job at conserving power at idle.
posted by majortom1981 at 4:16 AM on October 30, 2009