eGPU wattage

[neufuse Veteran]

This isn't really a question but more of a whoa...

So I purchased a eGPU occulink dock and card for my system to add a 2nd GPU... Already had a 4090 and moved to 5090 so through I'd use the 4090 to mess with LLM's and stuff..

Never expected to see at idle the GPU pulls 95 watts from the outlet... 95! This reading was taken from a kill-a-watt outlet meter the GPU was the only thing on the dedicated power supply.. I knew 4090's used 450ish watts when at full load but never expected 90 at idle sitting there with it's fans off doing nothing... 

the best part if you go into GPU monitor it claims it's only using 15 watts at idle, yet the kill-a-watt shows 90 being drawn from the wall outlet. at 100% it hits almost 450 watts and the kill-a-watt shows around 500

anyone else use eGPU's?

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

I believe that the hardware in that eGPU dock uses power, too. So it's not just the GPU, right?

[neufuse Veteran]

On 24/01/2026 at 11:11, Mindovermaster said:

I believe that the hardware in that eGPU dock uses power, too. So it's not just the GPU, right?

the eGPU dock only pulls 2 watts, there isn't much in it besids an occulink to PCI-X bridge chip and a few caps... if I put a smaller card in like a 4060 the idle wattage is only 11 watts

[+Jester124 Subscriber²]

I use one with a 9060 XT and nowhere near that much draw at idle. Mine sits at around 15 to 20 watts when not using it.

[neufuse Veteran]

On 24/01/2026 at 12:54, Jester124 said:

I use one with a 9060 XT and nowhere near that much draw at idle. Mine sits at around 15 to 20 watts when not using it.

are you going by what the GPU says it's using or the GPU by itself plugged into it's own PSU isolated?

This is the GPU isolated to wall power and it pulls 90 watts yet the GPU claims it isn't in software that says 15 watts

[Mindovermaster Global Moderator]

Face it, the system is rigged, and it's rigged against us. -Eric Alterman

[+Jester124 Subscriber²]

On 24/01/2026 at 18:39, neufuse said:

are you going by what the GPU says it's using or the GPU by itself plugged into it's own PSU isolated?

This is the GPU isolated to wall power and it pulls 90 watts yet the GPU claims it isn't in software that says 15 watts

Mine is measured off the plug. Under full load though, mine does only ~165w from the card and pulls about ~170w from the plug. So far my unit has very little overhead for power consumption that I see. Mine is pretty basic though with the controller board and a 250w mini atx power supply. Nothing to beefy as I didn't need much to power the 9060 XT.

[hellowalkman Reporter]

yeah feel like something is off.

[Steven P. Administrators]

That's really weird, what make of 4090 is it? Is there a BIOS/firmware update available for it?

Seeing as you confirmed the 4060 was only pulling 11 watts at idle, maybe there's a defect in the 4090.

I remember there was an issue with 7900 XTX's that prevented it from going into idle mode, so it was constantly drawing more power than it needed.

[neufuse Veteran]

On 26/01/2026 at 02:58, Steven P. said:

That's really weird, what make of 4090 is it? Is there a BIOS/firmware update available for it?

Seeing as you confirmed the 4060 was only pulling 11 watts at idle, maybe there's a defect in the 4090.

I remember there was an issue with 7900 XTX's that prevented it from going into idle mode, so it was constantly drawing more power than it needed.

MSI Gaming GeForce RTX 4090

The fans spin non-stop, I don't think it's going idle at all i dont see any bios updates, not official ones at least

[neufuse Veteran]

On 26/01/2026 at 07:36, neufuse said:

MSI Gaming GeForce RTX 4090

The fans spin non-stop, I don't think it's going idle at all i dont see any bios updates, not official ones at least

the fans do spin down when it's in the normal motherboard slot, but on the eGPU slot it seems to be running all the time

Edited January 26 by neufuse

[+Jester124 Subscriber²]

On 26/01/2026 at 06:44, neufuse said:

the fans do spin off when it's in the normal motherboard slot, but on the eGPU slot it seems to be running all the time

Ok, that a big difference as mine are fully off on idle. Power management is working perfectly. If you disconnect the dock and power it on without being connected, do the fans spin up and stay on? Mine will do its initial boot like you would expect and go into power saving mode turning the fans off. May be a good way to test if it is something with the connection or the dock itself.

[neufuse Veteran]

On 26/01/2026 at 08:18, Jester124 said:

Ok, that a big difference as mine are fully off on idle. Power management is working perfectly. If you disconnect the dock and power it on without being connected, do the fans spin up and stay on? Mine will do its initial boot like you would expect and go into power saving mode turning the fans off. May be a good way to test if it is something with the connection or the dock itself.

If I power on the dock with no occulink cable the fans come on and stay on, same as when its connected with the cable to the host system. The GPU is working fine, I can get it do work as a GPU or use CUDA fine with the occulink dock so it's working, just not sure why at idle it's using so much power.

Edit: ok so my 5090 seems to be similar... take it out of my workstation the system idles at 80 watts (Intel 285K)... put the 5090 back in the system idles at 145 watts... 65 watts for a GPU idle is kinda nuts... heck idling at 80 watts with the iGPU is nuts too (this is power at the wall outlet measured) meanwhile my Mac Mini 4 I bought as a spare system idles at 2.5-3 watts 🤣

Edited January 26 by neufuse

[+Jester124 Subscriber²]

I believe the card is fine, it sounds like the dock is the issue. Could be a limitation of that dock and not an actual "problem". The only NVIDIA card I could try that was not in use was a GTX 1650 and that performed as expected with my dock as well.

Power management fully working, fans spin down when at idle and total draw was ~13w from the plug. Since the card is pulling ~8w idling and the dock empty draws ~10w when powered on, I would say it is the dock in your case.

 

[Steven P. Administrators]

On 26/01/2026 at 16:59, neufuse said:

Edit: ok so my 5090 seems to be similar... take it out of my workstation the system idles at 80 watts (Intel 285K)... put the 5090 back in the system idles at 145 watts... 65 watts for a GPU idle is kinda nuts... 

I am testing the GMKtec AD-GP1 which has a AMD Radeon RX 7600M XT and it idles at around 25W in Windows 25H2.

And that is quite a bit lower card than a 5090 😛