A drive circuit applicable to a display device includes a first signal path and a second signal path. The first signal path, configured to receive image data and transmit the image data in a first operation mode, includes a compression unit, a storage unit and a de-compression unit. In the first operation mode, the compression unit performs a compression procedure on the image data to generate compression data, the storage unit stores the compression data, and the de-compression unit receives the compression data and performs a de-compression procedure on the compression data to recover the image data. The second signal path is configured to receive image data, transmit the image data to the storage unit so as to bypass the compression unit, and transmit the image data received from the storage unit to a display unit so as to bypass the decompression unit in a second operation mode.