I achieved all my GPU goals, for the most part. There are are still a few projects/apps with intermittent work, where I still will want to crunch more. So I don't want to get rid of the GPUs, but I also don't want them spending my cash while sitting idle. Power is crazy expensive here in CA.
Specifically, I am talking about a TITAN in once machine and 3x 7970s in the other machine. Some of the charts I am looking at say these cards consume at idle about 80w for the titan and 110w for the AMD. But these figures are for total system. How much do the individual cards actually consume?
Here i my thought: I remove these beasts and replace them with "canaries". Power-sipping GPU cards that can crunch, so I will know when work is available, and drive a monitor of course. And then I can swap back in the big boys when needed (also for team challenges).
My questions:
1) I need power consumption numbers for the GPUs to do the math to know if this makes sense. Opinions also welcome.
2) I need an nVidia and an AMD card that will crunch, and are cheap, and will sip power.