Nvidia working on solution for high idle consumption at high refresh rate

The idle power consumption of Nvidia video cards in combination with a G-sync monitor with a high refresh rate is much higher than with regular monitors. Nvidia has confirmed the issue and is working on a fix.

Ryan Shrout of PC Perspective discovered the problem when testing the Asus PG279Q, a 27″ monitor with G-sync and a refresh rate of 165Hz. He noticed that the test system consumed much more energy in idle mode than when using a monitor. With a refresh rate of 60 or 120Hz, consumption went up to 200 watts, while the system did nothing but display the desktop.A look at the clock speeds of the gpu, a GTX 980 Ti, explained the higher consumption. Normally, the video card clocks its gpu back to 135MHz, but at refresh rates of 120Hz and higher, Shrout observed speeds of up to 885MHz.

The problem would only occur with monitors with G-sync. When using a 144Hz monitor without G-sync support, the power consumption in idle mode did not deviate. Shrout sent his findings to Nvidia and received a response from the video card maker. In it, Nvidia admits that there is a bug in the way the GPU adjusts clock speeds when using a monitor with G-sync and a high refresh rate. The company says it is working on a fix that will reduce the clock speed of the GPU, just like with other monitors. The solution should appear in a subsequent driver.