does underclocking save power/fan life?

[Santasballz]

hi, due to my business, i always have to leave my computer idle

my graphics card is: ATI AWI x800xt
default core 500, mem 500

i was wondering...would i save power, and the fan's life (slowing it down) if i were to underclock it? are there any DISADVANTAGES in doing this? will it harm my card? void warranty?

also, how low can i make the frequency so that i still can use computer for word processing, webbuilding, email answering

thanks

 

[tshen_83]

first, why do you have a xl800xt for your business machine that stays on all the time? it's a waste.

second....underclocking a graphics card will only save you little power as the core is sitting idle anyways. the xl800xt is probably idling at 30W (i am guessing here). and underclocking the core/memory clock will be almost linear in power reduction, meaning a 10% core downclock will yield about 10% idle power savings ....which is only 3W. Now reducing voltage will have a squared effect in power as Power is proportional to V^2. So you can reduce voltage and underclock at the same time and will probably cut the idle power in half....which is only 10-15W saving in power.

to underclock core/mem, use powerstrip.

underclocking voltage will require volt mod, which would void your waranty.

So my suggestion is to use powerstrip whenver you don't game on the card

 

[danielj315]

Yeh it should make a difference but i dont know how big

Should make a difference in temps as well


PS to the mods isn't this General video card topic since it isnt ATI specific

 

[V99]

first, why do you have a xl800xt for your business machine that stays on all the time? it's a waste.

Indeed it is... a Radeon 9250 64mb would be the trick.

 

[soulsaver_8229]

first, why do you have a x800xt AIW for your business machine that stays on all the time? it's a waste.

fixed for you sir

and yeah get a cheapy tv tuner and a low end vid card, you dont need that for an office pc

soulsaver