Question about using two GPUs in one system

[StalWolfen]

Hi there, I've been a laptop user all my life because I needed the mobility, but, since I'll be settling in one house in the near future, I'm planning to build a desktop pc, which raised me a question:

Something about using a somewhat powerful computer (that I want to play games) to browse the web and watch videos, which is what I'll do most of the time, doesn't sit right with me in a power consumption perspective, since I live in Europe, the monetary cost isn't negligible, but it also just doesn't feel right. This lead me to think of what I have now, a laptop, and the way it uses the integrated graphics for light tasks and the dedicated for heavier tasks like games and, since most of the AMD CPUs now come with integrated graphics anyway, why not do the same thing in a desktop?

 

I'm guessing this is possible and I know it has a performance impact for heavier tasks, but I never hear anyone talking about doing it, so I don't know if it is worth it. I would love to know your opinions on the matter. Is it possible? Does it make a real difference in power consumption? Does it have too much of a performance impact?

 

For reference I'm planning to go with a RTX 4070 and a current gen ryzen 7 at the time of the build.

 

[Hinjima]

19 minutes ago, StalWolfen said:

Hi there, I've been a laptop user all my life because I needed the mobility, but, since I'll be settling in one house in the near future, I'm planning to build a desktop pc, which raised me a question:

Something about using a somewhat powerful computer (that I want to play games) to browse the web and watch videos, which is what I'll do most of the time, doesn't sit right with me in a power consumption perspective, since I live in Europe, the monetary cost isn't negligible, but it also just doesn't feel right. This lead me to think of what I have now, a laptop, and the way it uses the integrated graphics for light tasks and the dedicated for heavier tasks like games and, since most of the AMD CPUs now come with integrated graphics anyway, why not do the same thing in a desktop?

 

I'm guessing this is possible and I know it has a performance impact for heavier tasks, but I never hear anyone talking about doing it, so I don't know if it is worth it. I would love to know your opinions on the matter. Is it possible? Does it make a real difference in power consumption? Does it have too much of a performance impact?

 

For reference I'm planning to go with a RTX 4070 and a current gen ryzen 7 at the time of the build.

 

Modern GPU's are incredibly power efficient during idle/low tasks.  Using integrated graphics for web browsing or youtube would be negligible in my opinion.

You might save a couple of cents per year.

 

I disabled the integrated graphics on my 7700x and 9800X3D.

[Needfuldoer]

A modern desktop GPU may have a 300 watt TDP, but that doesn't mean it's going to draw 300 watts all the time. That just means it can pull 300 watts if it has to in order to render what's being asked of it. Idle power is much lower than when it's running full-tilt.

 

Adding a second GPU is just going to increase power consumption.

 

If you really want to save a few watts, use a laptop for web browsing etc and only use the desktop for gaming. 

[Hinjima]

I have this forum open, I am running a Youtube video at 1440p and my GPU is pulling 19 watts.

Its an RTX 4080.

[StalWolfen]

I see, thank you for answering my questions.

[Spotty]

The board power draw specifications for graphics cards are based on their maximum power draw. Graphics cards will automatically adjust their clock speed and power state depending on the tasks they are performing, which can drastically lower the cards power consumption.

 

1 hour ago, StalWolfen said:

For reference I'm planning to go with a RTX 4070 and a current gen ryzen 7 at the time of the build.

Techpowerup does power consumption testing for idle and video playback in their graphics card reviews. That will give you a good idea of what power consumption to expect when you're just browsing websites or watching a youtube video.

https://www.techpowerup.com/review/nvidia-geforce-rtx-4070-founders-edition/39.html

[igormp]

I'm currently using my iGPU for video output and have both my 3090s solely for compute.

Using the iGPU doesn't really decrease my power consumption, but it does free up some VRAM from the 3090s. Since I don't do games, the iGPU is more than enough to drive my 4k display.

 

Given that the 3090s are far from efficient and the linux drivers are not that great when it comes to idle power draw, they still consume quite a bit of energy even doing nothing:

 

Over 50W from the GPUs doing pretty much nothing. Even when I used one of the 3090s to drive my display, the power consumption was pretty much the same.