Does single GPU takes less Power than 2 GPUs for 2 monitors

[otaku3230]

If I have two IPS monitors (one 1440p 27" and one 4k 34") hooked up to 1 GPU and another monitor to another GPU, will it take more power than if I have all 2 monitor hooked up to a single GPU? The 4k monitor will just for watching movies, 4k youtube videos; the other 1440p for reading only and surfing the web.

 

[XxMongermaniacxX]

yes it will use less power. if you take one of them out, the whole system will consume less power

 

[photonboy]

Yep.
Though sometimes it's not a bad idea to have one monitor per GPU due to VRAM usage. For example, if you game on say a GTX770 2GB card and connect it to your gaming monitor and use an iGPU (in an Intel i5) for the 4K monitor.

I've never really worked out how much GPU processing and VRAM usage is used up by another monitor especially a 4K monitor.

If you run a game FULLSCREEN then Windows can move the non-game video data to System Memory (i.e. DDR3) if need be and suspend the non-gaming programs.

However, if you have a second monitor that's not used for gaming that data has to stay in active use thus using some of the GPU and VRAM.

I did some testing once for my 1440p, GTX680 2GB, i7-3770K setup...
a) After web browsing and using PC my VRAM usage was 540MB
b) Started a game which used max 720MB... total VRAM usage was now 1260MB

(Desktop video data stays in VRAM)

After much testing I discovered if I ran a game that used close to 2GB then what happened was that roughly 520MB of the 540MB got moved out of video memory thus leaving me close to 2GB.

So... really not sure what would happen when running a second monitor as said above. Maybe this helps or just confuses?

 

[otaku3230]

Yep.
Though sometimes it's not a bad idea to have one monitor per GPU due to VRAM usage. For example, if you game on say a GTX770 2GB card and connect it to your gaming monitor and use an iGPU (in an Intel i5) for the 4K monitor.

I've never really worked out how much GPU processing and VRAM usage is used up by another monitor especially a 4K monitor.

If you run a game FULLSCREEN then Windows can move the non-game video data to System Memory (i.e. DDR3) if need be and suspend the non-gaming programs.

However, if you have a second monitor that's not used for gaming that data has to stay in active use thus using some of the GPU and VRAM.

I did some testing once for my 1440p, GTX680 2GB, i7-3770K setup...
a) After web browsing and using PC my VRAM usage was 540MB
b) Started a game which used max 720MB... total VRAM usage was now 1260MB

(Desktop video data stays in VRAM)

After much testing I discovered if I ran a game that used close to 2GB then what happened was that roughly 520MB of the 540MB got moved out of video memory thus leaving me close to 2GB.

So... really not sure what would happen when running a second monitor as said above. Maybe this helps or just confuses?

FORGET ALL ABOUT THIS and first tell me why do you THREE EYES on your avatar? Sounds suspicious to me.

Just kidding. How many less power r we talking about here?

 

[otaku3230]

yes it will use less power. if you take one of them out, the whole system will consume less power

how much less power it will use?

 

[ko888]

Anywhere between 10~20 Watts less depending upon the model of graphics card(s) being used.

 

[ko888]

Anywhere between 10~20 Watts less at Windows desktop idle depending upon the model of graphics card(s) being used.