Re: [gentoo-user] AMD RX GPU in Gentoo

[Emmanuel Vasilakis]

On 17/6/19 2:16 π.μ., mad.scientist.at.large@××××××××.com wrote:
> Sadly, in my experience graphics cards draw a fairly steady current independent of usage (it varies a bit, but less than 20%).   Some of the newer cards may be better.  There are utilities for at least some cards to adjust the clock on the GPU  (normally used by mad gamers/miners to overclock).   These might be an option, cmos draw power at a rate determined by clock frequency and it's a squared relationship, half the clock speed means about 1/4 the power draw.
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> I would also like to find some low power graphics cards, The only option I'm aware of  is to buy older, used cards on ebay.  I have a few machines I'd like to run headless most of the time, but basic text or basic graphics would be nice occasionally, but I don't want to waste 200W+ on a high end graphics card that never gets exercised.
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> Other than that, I've used an external 80mm fan to blow air across the heat sink and out the adjacent slot (after the attached fan failed and i removed it.  I mounted the fan in the drive cage.  The fans on graphics cards are generally moving air the worst way possible (just like many cpu heat sink/fan combos), blasting it into the face of a heatsink at high speed so there is some flow through the channels with massive, massive turbulence/noise.  Oddly enough although the built in fan had a tachometer the card doesn't pay any attention to what it thinks is the fan speed, even if the fan stalls completely so you don't have to "fool" the graphics card when removing the provided fan and using an "external" fan.

These are very good points, thanks! (Thanks to all btw who replied).

Well, the PC is connected to a 1440p monitor, so it's not headless like 
that, and although it's not that often I fire up Steam, I do have some 
games to waste time now and then :-)

I will research more on power consumption (which goes hand in hand with 
being cool and silent). From the little I've seen AMD GPUs should have 
some sort of power management with the AMDGPU driver.

Emmanuel

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> "Would you like to see us rule again, my friend?   All you have to do is follow the worms."  Pink Floyd, The Wall, Waiting for the worms
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> Jun 16, 2019, 3:36 PM by antlists@××××××××××××.uk:
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>> On 11/06/2019 20:21, Alec Ten Harmsel wrote:
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>>>> Plus, my current GT730 is passively cooled. Are there any RX cards that
>>>> at least spin down the fans when I'm working on desktop (no
>>>> plasma/gnome, simple Openbox with no heavy gpu requirements). I really
>>>> like silence!:-)
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>>> I can't hear mine at all right now.
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>> The larger the fan, the slower (and quieter) it spins. So if it needs a fan, try and make sure it's a big one.
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>> Cheers,
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>> Wol
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