Energy & performance comparison: GPU mining vs playing HD Video Using the built-in ATI video card on my computer, I can mine at about a 30-50 MHps rate. I'm wondering, how does this amount of work compare to normal video card operation? Or how can it be calculated? Is mining for 6 hours at this rate equivalent to watching Transformers 2 in HD over and over again on my monitor?

There's already plenty of questions about equipment wear when GPU mining, I'm looking for an easy-to-understand comparison to normal GPU taks.

Thanks
Using a GPU to mine Bitcoins would use a lot more power than watching HD video, since while the video decoder would only use the processing power it needed, a Bitcoin mine would use all of the power available to it.

I don't have any real numbers, but I think mining Bitcoins would be equivalent to, say, playing Far Cry 3 on the maximum settings, while watching HD video would be more like playing Fallout 3 on medium settings.