Hey gang,

This might be a weird question but, does anyone know the difference between the power consumption of your graphics card while on Low Settings and Ultra Settings.

I have recently double my electricity bill due to playing a ton and was wondering if it would make a significant difference for me to start playing on lower graphics settings.

I have searched google/teamliquid forums for this and haven't found anything.

Any knowledge would be appreciated

Lysergic

United States355 Posts

August 07 2011 10:57 GMT

I don't know for sure, but when I play on low my GPU usage goes up to 100% sometimes, while in Ultra it's pretty much always 100% (GTX470). The fan is used more, but I don't think that's much power at all. I doubt your electric bill changed because of your graphics card.

Your computer's overall power consumption might be raising your bill. Graphics cards are like 100W or so right? What kind of Power Supply do you have?

My electric bill doubled a month ago because I started using my air conditioning.

Anyways, I recommend setting your Graphics to Low, then changing Textures to Ultra, Terrain to Medium, Effects to Medium, and Models to High. You'll have higher fps, lower power, and the screen will be very readable - having shaders on med+ is distracting IMO, and Ultra settings are just ridiculous to play on.

RaLakedaimon

United States1564 Posts

August 07 2011 11:03 GMT

I could not imagine your graphics settings having any noticeable change to the cost of your electricity bill, if your looking for like tiny differences then yes I'm sure they are there but not like actually enough to have a substantial impact. What kind of computer do you have and have you done something you don't usually do lately like leaving A/C on way more cause its summer or something?

surraymb

Austria114 Posts

August 07 2011 11:06 GMT

Lowering the detail and stuff won't help usually as then the graphics card just spends it's power on rendering the lower detail stuff faster.

If you want to save power you could set your settings as low as you can live with and then reduce the clock speed and if possible the power of your graphics card and cpu as low as you can while keeping a playable framerate. Depending on your graphics card and driver you should be able to do this in your driver configruation.. cpu settings are usually best changed in the BIOS.

Yurie

11960 Posts

August 07 2011 11:10 GMT

On August 07 2011 20:06 surraymb wrote:
Lowering the detail and stuff won't help usually as then the graphics card just spends it's power on rendering the lower detail stuff faster.

If you want to save power you could set your settings as low as you can live with and then reduce the clock speed and if possible the power of your graphics card and cpu as low as you can while keeping a playable framerate. Depending on your graphics card and driver you should be able to do this in your driver configruation.. cpu settings are usually best changed in the BIOS.

MSI Afterburner is also a good program for changing GPU settings.

Bigpet

Germany533 Posts

August 07 2011 11:22 GMT

under-clocking or buying a lower end graphics card will probably do way more than just lowering settings.

Also what are your CPU, GPU, PSU?

Zhiroo

Kosovo2724 Posts

August 07 2011 11:24 GMT

CPU = Processor, GPU = Grachic Card, PSU = Power Supply

Raskit

579 Posts

August 07 2011 11:31 GMT

Having your monitor turn off after being idle a few minutes and eventually having your computer go into standby mode may help. Obviously depends on how you manage your computer though. If you always turn it off after playing, obviously won't make any difference.

Bigpet

Germany533 Posts

August 07 2011 11:52 GMT

On August 07 2011 20:24 Zhiroo wrote:
CPU = Processor, GPU = Grachic Card, PSU = Power Supply

Lol I meant what are his components but thanks for explaining it to everybody

anathematize

United States69 Posts

August 07 2011 12:28 GMT

#10

are you sure your roomate hasn't recently started growing some medicinal cannabis in his closet?

...because i think that is about the only thing that would DOUBLE your electric bill from one month to the next. no way the graphics settings from a single game is doing that.

DusTerr

2520 Posts

August 07 2011 12:34 GMT

#11

On August 07 2011 21:28 anathematize wrote:
are you sure your roomate hasn't recently started growing some medicinal cannabis in his closet?

...because i think that is about the only thing that would DOUBLE your electric bill from one month to the next. no way the graphics settings from a single game is doing that.

that definitely will... er, or could... so I've heard...

HaVoX

Canada61 Posts

August 07 2011 12:46 GMT

#12

There is no way running a gaming computer will double your power bill. I have a top of the line desktop PC and it might cost me $30 to run for a month around 12+ hours a day.

RoboBob

United States798 Posts

August 07 2011 12:50 GMT

#13

I really doubt its because of your graphic settings. Even if it is because of your computer, its likely either your monitor or your windows battery settings.

But if you want to see for yourself how much wattage each component consumes, check this out:
http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/downloads/fe9e10c5-5c5b-450c-a674-daf55565f794/default.aspx

Zhiroo

Kosovo2724 Posts

August 07 2011 12:52 GMT

#14

On August 07 2011 20:52 Bigpet wrote:

Show nested quote +

Lol I meant what are his components but thanks for explaining it to everybody

My bad I didn't see 'your' when I read that. :$

MoreSore

Ireland73 Posts

August 07 2011 13:05 GMT

#15

On August 07 2011 21:46 HaVoX wrote:
There is no way running a gaming computer will double your power bill. I have a top of the line desktop PC and it might cost me $30 to run for a month around 12+ hours a day.

That is highly unlikely

Anyways I have been gaming more lately, hiwch had an effect on the bill but I though that maybe lowering the graphics settings would make the card work less,therefore lowering power consumption.

btw. my psu is 800W

tertle

Australia328 Posts

August 07 2011 13:42 GMT

#16

It's actually relatively cheap to run a computer.

Let's assume a computer uses roughly 250W when browsing or 500W when gaming. (Single GPU, single monitor). At 15c/kilowatt hour, you're paying 3.5-7.5c/hour to use your computer.
Even if you're paying 20c/killowatt hour that's still around 10c/hour max assuming pure gaming.

You're rated PSU also has close nothing to do with the power draw, just the max power it can draw. In reality very few systems would ever reach 800W usage even with SLI, most standard systems would have a tough time breaking 400W. Technically a higher W cpu will use slightly less power as the optimal efficiency is generally around the 50% of max, but that's a couple of % and is only barely noticeable.

Lowering your graphics card will reduce your power usage, but by so little that it'd be barely noticeable.

Saicam

262 Posts

August 07 2011 13:46 GMT

#17

Lol I doubt graphic settings affect ur electricity bill

MoreSore

Ireland73 Posts

August 07 2011 14:28 GMT

#18

Haha your right guys

Thanks and gl

DarKcS

Australia1237 Posts

August 07 2011 14:45 GMT

#19

Not relevant to cost at all, but GPU Usage on low settings is 15-30%, where as on max its 100%. Basically the GPU will never leave low power state on low settings because Starcraft 2 is a CPU biased game. This is really only helpful to know for people with GPU overheating issues

http://www.techspot.com/review/305-starcraft2-performance/page4.html

I was going to upgd my GPU first but when I saw that my $80 275 GTX neglibly slower than a $300-400 470/480 (only in SC2) but there is a 20~fps different between my Q6600 and an i7 level CPU.

Zax19

Czech Republic1136 Posts

August 07 2011 16:54 GMT

#20

You would need to not only lower your settings and cap your fps at 30 or 60 in the Variables.ini but also use some external program to underclock and undervolt your graphics card, CPU and RAM. With desktop graphics card this shouldn’t be such a problem (and it also helps your temperatures, google some undervolting guide), but from what I've heard i3/5/7 CPUs have problems with RMClock.

Anyway, get RMCLock, some clocking tool for your graphics card and underclock and undervolt all of it. Most of the time hardware will run faster, eat up more energy than necessary and undervolting is great if you spend a lot of time playing a 3D game with very low requirements.