How Much Power Does My Video Card Need?

Video cards can be very economical or very power demanding.

Video cards range from economical ones up to power-consuming monsters. The power requirements of video cards vary, depending on the type of video card, and how intensely you use it.

Office Use

Simple office tasks don't stress the video card. Whether you're using a low-end graphics card or a very powerful one, the average power consumption for it should be somewhere in between 3 and 44 watts while performing these kind of tasks.

Multimedia Use

Multimedia tasks, such as playing a Blu-ray disk requires some video processing, so you may expect a higher consumption. Typical power consumption for multimedia tasks vary from a mere 7 watts up to almost 114 watts.

Gaming Use

Games tend to stress video cards the most. Depending on the complexity of the game and detail settings, a low-end video card can consume as little as 9 watts of power, while a high-end video card can easily go past 300 watts of required power.

References

• Xbit Laboratories: Power Consumption of Contemporary Graphics Accelerators

Resources

• Build Your Own Computers: How to Choose a Video Card