[mythtv-users] Power usage and CPU/GPU combo chips (was Re: 0.25 VAAPI does it work)

[Michael]

On 10/11/2012 04:09 PM, Michael T. Dean wrote:
> On 08/07/2012 12:32 PM, fred watt wrote:
>> NVidia is an option this is easy to to setup with VDPAU - but it means
>> another card in my frontends for me (a) want to keep as low power as
>> possible
>
> This is often mentioned, and I have to wonder about it.  It seems to 
> me that any "sane" design (in this world where AMD/Intel know a thing 
> or 2 about gating--more, it seems, than a certain company that makes a 
> quad-core ARM chip with 5 cores because they couldn't work out 
> separate per-core gating, so it uses either the one-core or the quad 
> core chip at any given time :) for a ceepie-geepie (CPGP, or CPU + 
> GPU, or APU, or ...) would completely shut down power to the on-chip 
> GPU when you disable it.  In that case, you'd disable the onboard GPU 
> (and save whatever number of watts it normally draws at idle) then add 
> back in a PCIe (or whatever) GPU that draws some 6-10W at idle (I 
> think the GT220 was 7-9W and the GT430 was like 6-8W, IIRC).

I don't know how it works or doesn't :)

But I have a i5 with built in video.  Using the onboard GPU the whole 
system takes 35+ Watts playing back video.  If I add a GT430, the system 
now takes 85+ Watts.

Michael