Hey guys,
I wanted to talk about just what the title suggests. I have a feeling that many people don't realize this. Running your monitor(s) at 144 Hz will prevent your primary GPU from ever downclocking into the idle power state (i.e. 324 MHz core and memory clocks) causing ridiculously high idle temperature and power draw. Edit: We have figured out that with only a single monitor, the cards will downclock. With more than one monitor and at least one set to 144 Hz, they will go to the high idle state. 120 Hz and below will allow the card to be able to idle down on the desktop which leads to normal idle temps and power draw.
On my particular 780 Ti, the idle power state (achieved either by 120 Hz or 60 Hz refresh rates in NVCP) produces a temperature of 32C with a power draw of 10%, or 25W based on the 250W TDP. With the refresh rate set to 144 Hz, I see "idle" clocks of 810 MHz, 47C, and 55% power draw. That's an additional 113W used on the desktop, not to mention some pretty ridiculous idle temperatures.
Now, the reason I suspect that not many people realize this is because I would anticipate many more complaints and much more noise to be made on the forums if everyone knew. More and more people are running 144 Hz monitors now, and I think we will see even more with this next generation of G-Sync monitors. I can't imagine people are or are going to be ok with this ridiculous increase in temperature and power draw at idle by utilizing their 144 Hz monitors the way they're intended to be.
I have posted on the nVidia forums in the driver section inquiring if it would be possible to have a dynamic refresh rate in the driver. Basically, the way I envision it, there would be a 2D and a 3D refresh rate setting in the drivers. You could set 120 Hz for 2D (desktop) and 144 Hz for 3D. This would allow the best of both worlds. However, I have no idea if this is possible. The post received an acknowledgement from a forum moderator that it was a solid idea, but nothing more.
My point of posting here was to bring attention to this. Maybe some people more knowledgeable than I could chime in as to why the GPU's operate this way and what remedies could potentially be done. Maybe we could also start being a little louder about getting a solution to this from nVidia. As we see more and more 144 Hz refresh rates in the future, I would think this is something that will ultimately have to be dealt with.
Thoughts?
I wanted to talk about just what the title suggests. I have a feeling that many people don't realize this. Running your monitor(s) at 144 Hz will prevent your primary GPU from ever downclocking into the idle power state (i.e. 324 MHz core and memory clocks) causing ridiculously high idle temperature and power draw. Edit: We have figured out that with only a single monitor, the cards will downclock. With more than one monitor and at least one set to 144 Hz, they will go to the high idle state. 120 Hz and below will allow the card to be able to idle down on the desktop which leads to normal idle temps and power draw.
On my particular 780 Ti, the idle power state (achieved either by 120 Hz or 60 Hz refresh rates in NVCP) produces a temperature of 32C with a power draw of 10%, or 25W based on the 250W TDP. With the refresh rate set to 144 Hz, I see "idle" clocks of 810 MHz, 47C, and 55% power draw. That's an additional 113W used on the desktop, not to mention some pretty ridiculous idle temperatures.
Now, the reason I suspect that not many people realize this is because I would anticipate many more complaints and much more noise to be made on the forums if everyone knew. More and more people are running 144 Hz monitors now, and I think we will see even more with this next generation of G-Sync monitors. I can't imagine people are or are going to be ok with this ridiculous increase in temperature and power draw at idle by utilizing their 144 Hz monitors the way they're intended to be.
I have posted on the nVidia forums in the driver section inquiring if it would be possible to have a dynamic refresh rate in the driver. Basically, the way I envision it, there would be a 2D and a 3D refresh rate setting in the drivers. You could set 120 Hz for 2D (desktop) and 144 Hz for 3D. This would allow the best of both worlds. However, I have no idea if this is possible. The post received an acknowledgement from a forum moderator that it was a solid idea, but nothing more.
My point of posting here was to bring attention to this. Maybe some people more knowledgeable than I could chime in as to why the GPU's operate this way and what remedies could potentially be done. Maybe we could also start being a little louder about getting a solution to this from nVidia. As we see more and more 144 Hz refresh rates in the future, I would think this is something that will ultimately have to be dealt with.
Thoughts?
