Intel Fixes Arc GPUs’ High Dual-Monitor Power Consumption, 3+ Monitors Still a Problem

Today, multi-display configurations are used by many in the small office/home office space (SOHO). Intel’s affordable Arc A770 graphics card is fine for these setups, provided that in idle mode he doesn’t consume 40W of power when driving two or more monitors. Apparently, the latest driver fixed the problem and reportedly cut power consumption by a quarter of his. video cardsBut there are pitfalls.

To drive multiple displays at once, you need to power on the appropriate number of energy-consuming display pipelines. Also, sending a high-resolution image with deep colors to the monitor requires transferring a lot of data, which means power. But in idle mode, the GPU doesn’t need to send 60 or 120 high resolution deep color images per second to the display. This is what Intel’s Arc-based graphics cards have done (and AMD’s and Nvidia’s competitors have not).