I'm thinking of heat generation here. Say I'm going to video record something with a capture card for later viewing and won't be using the computer for hours. If I lock the computer and turn off the monitor, is the system smart enough to know that nothing is being displayed on screen and therefor deactivate the 'work' the video card does to send data to the screen (thus reducing heat generated)?
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Yes, and no.
If you put the system to sleep, then it definitely will go into a sleeping, zero power mode.
Just locking the computer and turning off the monitor will leave the GPU running, until it reaches the point in the power plan where it has been specified to turn the screen off. Then the GPU will go into low power idle mode. So if you lock the computer and turn off the monitor, it may take 15 to 30 minutes (or whatever you have it set to) to turn off the GPU output. Just because the monitor is off, doesn't mean that the GPU isn't working.
If you want your GPU to rest while you're away from the PC, put the computer into sleep.
Thanks Mellon Head. Yes, I have the Power Options set to turn off the Monitor in 15 minutes, so I should be good then.
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