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does tdp means real world electric bill savings for q6600 to ivy/sandy bridge system?

K

kreactor

Senior member
i'm trying to justify an upgrade even though q6600 w/ gtx 460 plays everything current
at 1680x1050 fine

so how do i figure out potential savings on electric bill upgrading from q6600 to a sandy/ivy bridge system? thanks!
 
My fully loaded and 3.3Ghz OC'ed Q6600's ran me $15/month for electricity.

That's $180/year.

Sandy bridge or ivy bridge could use zero electricity, be powered by granola and unicorn placenta, and the cost of replacing my Q6600 to buy a SB or IB would take at least 4yrs ($700-800 for the system) to break-even.

The fact that it doesn't use zero electricity means the breakeven point is even farther out into the future (probably more like 10-15 yrs).

No one replaces their computer with a new one so as to save money, no one that has done the TCO correctly that is 😉

In my case, I replaced my Q6600 with a Sandy Bridge...for reasons of "power-savings". Heh, wife doesn't check my math and I wasn't overly concerned with being exactly rocket-scientist accurate about it either 😛 Don't look a gift excuse in the mouth 😉
 
Ivy Bridge uses alot less power at load than Sandy.

Your Q6600 uses alot of power actually. CPU and Platform.

Q6600 at Anand idles at ~135W. 3770K at ~75W.

Load wise the Q6600 uses ~195W. 3770K ~128W.

But the main point is you get a massive performance increase.
 
I've "upgraded" many older non gaming C2D systems with crappy or obsolete graphics cards to Sandy Bridge and cant wait to continue with AMDs Trinity, overall it was worth it with SBs high single thread ipc/graphics/video and low tdp SKUs like Core i3s and 65W quadcores, the result was very fast, very silent and highly efficient pcs that run cool and silent.
 
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ShintaiDK said:
Ivy Bridge uses alot less power at load than Sandy.

Your Q6600 uses alot of power actually. CPU and Platform.

Q6600 at Anand idles at ~135W. 3770K at ~75W.

Load wise the Q6600 uses ~195W. 3770K ~128W.

But the main point is you get a massive performance increase.
Click to expand...

So savings in idling/fully loaded per hour is 0.06/0.067kWh.
If we estimate say 2 hours idling per day (browsing the web or working on spreadsheets/docs) and 3 hours intensive use, savings = 0.12+0.201kWh per day. Per month electricity savings ~9.63kWh.

http://205.254.135.7/electricity/
Savings per month in cheap electricity states (~8c/kWh) would work out to ~77c, in expensive states (say 17c/kWh) that would be ~$1.64.
 
So the savings in electricity costs alone is negligible. The real savings is in not needing to buy larger psus or better cooling devices etc and better reliability with marginal components. Say a borderline flaky cheap mb with 3+1 phases might not work with a 125W tdp cpu but would be sufficient for a 77W cpu.
 
bononos said:
So savings in idling/fully loaded per hour is 0.06/0.067kWh.
If we estimate say 2 hours idling per day (browsing the web or working on spreadsheets/docs) and 3 hours intensive use, savings = 0.12+0.201kWh per day. Per month electricity savings ~9.63kWh.

http://205.254.135.7/electricity/
Savings per month in cheap electricity states (~8c/kWh) would work out to ~77c, in expensive states (say 17c/kWh) that would be ~$1.64.
Click to expand...

Those who leave their computers on 24/7 will see a significant cost savings though, even at 10 cents/kWh. 0.10 * 0.060 * 24 * 365 = $52.56
 
At full load
If you power company charges you 15c a kw-hr
The difference in wattage is 60w
The cost for 24 hrs is 22c
The cost for a year is $80

This is the upper bound for cost.

No you can't justify it on power usage alone.

Please don't ask me to justify my man cave?
 
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blastingcap said:
Those who leave their computers on 24/7 will see a significant cost savings though, even at 10 cents/kWh. 0.10 * 0.060 * 24 * 365 = $52.56
Click to expand...

Like I said in my posts, the difference as seen in the monthly bill is negligible, the bigger savings is by not having to buy bigger heatsinks and being able to use less+cheaper case fans, cheaper case, cheaper motherboards to be able to run a cool and quiet pc.
 
bononos said:
Like I said in my posts, the difference as seen in the monthly bill is negligible, the bigger savings is by not having to buy bigger heatsinks and being able to use less+cheaper case fans, cheaper case, cheaper motherboards to be able to run a cool and quiet pc.
Click to expand...

To be clear, I'm *agreeing* with you.

Btw if you resell the older CPU, then that will partially offset the up front cost of upgrading. The rest you can try to make up on saved electric and related heatsink/etc. costs which could be substantial over the years, as has been discussed.
 
You can justify it on power savings.

I sold my older 1366 system for 250 and bought an IB system for 350. Even an older 775 system would fetch 150. You keep the system for 3 years and it comes out to about 65 a year.
 
Let's not forget more power = more heat which = longer AC runtimes in the summer for many people. So older CPUs are using more power that dump more heat then you have to use even more power to get rid of that heat.
 
2is said:
Let's not forget more power = more heat which = longer AC runtimes in the summer for many people. So older CPUs are using more power that dump more heat then you have to use even more power to get rid of that heat.
Click to expand...

It reverses in the winter, though. My 7970 kept me nice and warm during the tail end of winter and colder days of spring. 🙂 But yeah heat exhaust is mandatory, not optional, so it's best to get as close to zero as possible--that way you have the OPTION to use it as a space heater.
 
blastingcap said:
It reverses in the winter, though. My 7970 kept me nice and warm during the tail end of winter and colder days of spring. 🙂 But yeah heat exhaust is mandatory, not optional, so it's best to get as close to zero as possible--that way you have the OPTION to use it as a space heater.
Click to expand...

I try to be as efficient as possible. I turn my computers off when I'm done but in the winter I keep the one in my room on running some DC projects 😉 keeps a nice temp and doing something useful. :thumbsup:
 
1 more thing you have to factor in is the stress testing part.

I like my systems 100% stable. That means at least 12 hour runs of prime95. I've been through several runs already dialing in my voltages for 4.4, 4.5, and beyond. But I'm OCD like this and need to know exactly how much vcore I need for different speeds to finally settle in on an efficient overclock in the cpu's sweet spot range.

That negates any power savings. lol
 
My Q6600 system consumed 280 watts while gaming, with a card that pulled about 60 watts less than a 460! So you are probably pulling 300-330 watts during typical gaming, or as low as 280 if not overclocking. With an ib i3 and say a HD7770, you will pull no more than 160 watts while gaming and fps would improve slightly. I'm thinking 150 watts, even 140 with the right mobo and HDD setup. So thats like 3 cents an hour savings, not counting air conditioning costs in the summer.

Obviously it is not worth it even if you game 40 hours a week and you are running the A/C. In that case you would be saving about $15 over the course of one hot summer. Meh. The upgrade would take 3 years to pay for itself.
 
Of course any savings depend on individual usage, but aside from a PC used as a gaming console (only gaming no web browsing etc) and someone running folding@home and similar, the biggest cost is not load but idle wattage. I estimate my desktop is idle 80% of the time.

And that's one area where SB / IB and Trinity (and even Bulldozer) have a huge lead. All the new design have very good power gating and are very good at idling.

Although a special case, I was really impressed with the 20W idle which HP Compaq Elite 8200 achieves:
46816.png


I know i5-2500S but that isn't the full explanation. From the review (http://www.anandtech.com/show/4867/hp-compaq-8200-elite-ultraslim-the-littlest-desktop) it's a Q67 chipset and 87%+ PSU. The rig in my sig uses about 80W idle, whereas 20W is more like laptop power usage.
 
Idontcare said:
My fully loaded and 3.3Ghz OC'ed Q6600's ran me $15/month for electricity.

That's $180/year.

Sandy bridge or ivy bridge could use zero electricity, be powered by granola and unicorn placenta, and the cost of replacing my Q6600 to buy a SB or IB would take at least 4yrs ($700-800 for the system) to break-even.

The fact that it doesn't use zero electricity means the breakeven point is even farther out into the future (probably more like 10-15 yrs).

No one replaces their computer with a new one so as to save money, no one that has done the TCO correctly that is 😉
Click to expand...

If you never turn off your PC, or worse, if its always at load (folding, seti, etc) then you most definitely should be replacing it for power savings, it will pay for itself quickly.

Or you can realize you are "donating" a ton of money to the power company and that the marketing claims of those organizations are a big fat lie... and do yourself a favor and turn them off. It's what I did.

Also, why would you pay 800$ for such an upgrade? at worst you don't have compatible ram so the cost is mobo + ram + CPU. which is under 400$.
And your old parts don't evaporate, you can resell them.

For example, when I upgraded my Q6600 to a Q9400 after all income and expenses were accounted for, including shipping, I was out 5$.

However, all that being said. If you are not using it 24/7 its probably not worth it for the power savings.
 
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Unless you keep it on 24/7 at something more than idle, no its not worth an upgrade for power savings alone.
 
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