Idle Clock states

[Entilza]

My old ATI 3870 card downgrades to 300Ghz on idle (when in windows)

Do the new cards such as the AMD 7770+ or the Nvidia 560+ downgrade the clock during idle as well? And if so can you post examples of what it does?

These keeps the power consumption low so I am just curious,

Thanks!

 

[skizzled]

Most, if not all recent, graphics cards have a 2D mode whereby the clock speeds for the Core and RAM downclocks to save energy which in turn produces less heat.

This happens on the fly so it requires no input from you unless it is for some reason not imitating the 2D clocks (ie: watching Flash content without turning GPU accel off, etc...).

 

[Falkentyne]

They've been doing that for a very long time.

AMD 7970 cards downclock to 300/150 when idle and 925/1325 at normal 3D. There was a 500 mhz clock but either that doesn't apply for 7970 cards, or it goes away if you manually overclock......

 

[spine]

I'm not sure about the very latest gen nvidia, but certainly for the last gens, the cards only downclock in single monitor mode. Add another monitor and you're running full whack 24/7.

Also, I've just observed having gotten a new shiny 120hz monitor, that running at 120hz causes the downclock to not go as far down, and I think it goes down one power state less than normal as well.

Hope that's useful...

 

[Jorona]

I'm not sure about the very latest gen nvidia, but certainly for the last gens, the cards only downclock in single monitor mode. Add another monitor and you're running full whack 24/7.

Also, I've just observed having gotten a new shiny 120hz monitor, that running at 120hz causes the downclock to not go as far down, and I think it goes down one power state less than normal as well.

Hope that's useful...

My 480 downclocks to 51mhz at idle with dual monitors. Where does your info come from?

 

[Elsie]

My 460 goes to moderate 3d clocks (full voltage, full memory clock, ~2/3 core clock) with two different res monitors plugged in. A mate's 560 stays at full performance 3d clocks with two different monitors plugged in. Apparently though if the monitors are the same res the power saving behaviour is normal.