For an i5 2400 with H67 motherboard & HD 6870 GPU, would it be advisable to turn off discrete graphics & switch over to intel graphics (via BIOS) when system is not being used for gaming? Would this improve power consumption significantly or is it not worth the effort?
Further I also want to know whether power gating technology applicable for GPU (Nvidia or AMD) as it is in intel processors?
^^
It would not really make a world of difference. The GPU has power profiles. So when not rendering 3D (games) the clocks idle down, and the consumption is considerably less. You can read any review about the HD6870 accelerator and will see the differentials. Idle vs. load power consumption. Hope this helps..!
HD6870 pulls ~40W at idle.
Not worth the difference.
Not worth the difference.
Thanks for the info! also want to know if there is a way of disabling cores of sandy bridge while only torrent downloads are running at night?
sandybridge cores are already powergated when not in use AFAIK. thats why these processors have around 5W~ idle consumption only!
these days components manage power consumption very well themselves. You need not and cannot go around playing with the components, disabling and enabling cores etc.
If you are too concerned about power consumption, I have a few suggestions for you:
1. Use a good PSU. Corsair PSUs are very efficient and waste the least amount of power. But, since you have a gfx card, I suspect you already have a good PSU
2. Set the monitor to turn off automatically after the PC is idle for 5 minutes. this will conserve some power while only downloading jobs are going on and you are not using the PC
3. If you download a lot, consider buying a separate download rig with components like Intel Atom or AMD sempron (or wait for AMD fusion APUs) without a monitor.
