Is zero core actually that useful?

[Hokum]

My main gaming rig rarely goes to power saving mode, its only used in the evening and when its on I’m playing on it. Now the documents say that zero core is only used when the pc is in a monitor off state.

Seeing as that is when the pc isn't being used wouldn't people using more aggressive power saving like standby be better over all?

In my HTPC which is used daily from 8am-11pm this is again rarely in monitor off mode, it either has tv on, or music or my wife is reading the internet etc.

I can understand lower idle usage as the HTPC is regularly idle or just showing video, but is zero core that useful?

I could see it being of more use for mobile devices like laptops.

 

[radrok]

I think Zerocore will be useful on desktop for those users that keep the pc on 24/7 and leave it at night, there you'll see the difference.
I am more interested and I find more valuable the fact that Zerocore puts to almost completely sleep (3W) slave cards on CrossfireX configurations like mine, now my GPUs when I am on desktop are always on and my PC powered idle state(when on 2D) consumption is very high, something in the order of 190W if I'm not mistaken, probably a tad more, I've never tried to check it

 

[Hokum]

True I hadn't considered crossfire setups, with GCN crossfire may become more popular. But in the case of people leaving their pc's on 24/7 wouldn't suspend or standby be better to save power?

 

[radrok]

Well it depends if you need to have the CPU working on something, I used to leave my pc on all night to preload Steam games so I think the GPU could be well put on sleep state while Steam downloads

 

[Mussels]

True I hadn't considered crossfire setups, with GCN crossfire may become more popular. But in the case of people leaving their pc's on 24/7 wouldn't suspend or standby be better to save power?

saying on and S3 at the same time is contradictory. S3 might as well be off, since the PC cant actually do anything in that state.


that said, i've never heard of zero core - what the hell is it?


(should be noted i use S3 daily, actually power down/reboot the system once a month or so)

 

[Hokum]

saying on and S3 at the same time is contradictory. S3 might as well be off, since the PC cant actually do anything in that state.


that said, i've never heard of zero core - what the hell is it?


(should be noted i use S3 daily, actually power down/reboot the system once a month or so)

I mean if they have their PC's on doing nothing wouldn't standby/suspend be better. For torrents and such netbooks or even routers are a more cost effective solution.

Zero core is the ability for the graphics processor to suspend (power off) while the system is turned on.

 

[Mussels]

I mean if they have their PC's on doing nothing wouldn't standby/suspend be better. For torrents and such netbooks or even routers are a more cost effective solution.

Zero core is the ability for the graphics processor to suspend (power off) while the system is turned on.

well for example i run a teamspeak server that helps for the PC to be on, but doesnt require much processsing power. same for an idling file server.


zero core would help for me while web browsing, for example, but ULPS already covers that/powers down my secondary card completely.

 

[Xaser04]

In the real world it probably won't help all that much but TBH its included if you want to use it / can make use of it ( I am not sure of the exact usage scenarios outside of CF), therefore I don't really see an issue.

 

[W1zzard]

zerocore is big for the millions of office pcs that never get turned off at night

also its great for crossfire

if you switch your single gpu pc on and off or hibernate/standby - it will make no difference for you