How power-guzzling graphics cards affect the rest of your PC

And how to handle the noise, heat, and throttling of the cutting edge.

When experiencing the excitement of a new GPU release, our mouths collectively water as the specs are revealed to us. Power draw numbers make us Ooh and Aah as it often means high performance. In real-world use, however, these exclamations can quickly turn to ohh… and ahh… as we're faced with the hot, noisy, power-hungry GPUs in our everyday gaming rigs. We're going to tell you what to expect from the current and future behemoths in the real world. Noise, nuclear level thermals, and even thermal throttling. Don't worry, we'll also fill you in on how to manage these toasty GPUs, and what that means for the rest of your system!

Join the newsletter!

Or

Sign up to gain exclusive access to email subscriptions, event invitations, competitions, giveaways, and much more.

Membership is free, and your security and privacy remain protected. View our privacy policy before signing up.

Error: Please check your email address.
Keep up with the latest tech news, reviews and previews by subscribing to the Good Gear Guide newsletter.

Thiago Trevisan

PC World (US online)
Show Comments

Most Popular Reviews

Latest Articles

Resources

PCW Evaluation Team

Cate Bacon

Aruba Instant On AP11D

The strength of the Aruba Instant On AP11D is that the design and feature set support the modern, flexible, and mobile way of working.

Dr Prabigya Shiwakoti

Aruba Instant On AP11D

Aruba backs the AP11D up with a two-year warranty and 24/7 phone support.

Tom Pope

Dynabook Portégé X30L-G

Ultimately this laptop has achieved everything I would hope for in a laptop for work, while fitting that into a form factor and weight that is remarkable.

Tom Sellers

MSI P65

This smart laptop was enjoyable to use and great to work on – creating content was super simple.

Lolita Wang

MSI GT76

It really doesn’t get more “gaming laptop” than this.

Featured Content

Product Launch Showcase

Don’t have an account? Sign up here

Don't have an account? Sign up now

Forgot password?