FX-8320E, 16GB DDR3-1600, GT1030 2GB w/fan, 480GB SSD = 63W at desktop

VirtualLarry

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Aug 25, 2001
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Kind of surprised me. I mean, it's not as low as my Deskmini units with G4600 CPUs and M.2 PCI-E SSDs, but it's not a horrible level of power-consumption at the desktop, especially with a (small) dGPU attached.

I haven't tested it under full load yet, I might do that soon. If I do, I'll try to remember to post it here too. Might fire up some DC for testing. I'm going to guess, though, 110W full CPU load w/dGPU on desktop, 140W full CPU+dGPU load. Let's see how correct I was.

All in all, I'm happy with this little under-$500 rig (with sales). My first FX purchase, arguably the "best" FX CPU to buy, based on power consumption. It does indeed turbo to 4Ghz, according to CPU-Z, occasionally. Most of the time, it's at 1400Mhz.
 

ElFenix

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Mar 20, 2000
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i had an athlon2 x4 that did about that with a couple/few spinning drives. i think it had one of those geforce 210 cards in it, or maybe a 5450/6450. something fanless, either way.
 

Ranulf

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Jul 18, 2001
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My FX8350 system with 16gb ram, two ssd's, a hdd, and an rx 480 idles (well with browser and steam in background) at 75-80w.
 

SPBHM

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Sep 12, 2012
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idle power usage is affected quite a bit by settings, motherboard and graphics card

I don't remember FX being particularly bad for idle power usage, AM2-AM3 was also OK, the problem is that most reviews focused on high end builds with power hungry VGAs and motherboards that might not be the most efficient ones.
 
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ao_ika_red

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Aug 11, 2016
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Screenshot-2018-2-16_List_of_AMD_FX_microprocessors_-_Wikipedia.png


Image above is clock/voltage configuration for FX 8 threaded CPUs. As you can see, low power skus have less agressive idle voltage than normal skus bar 8300 and 8310. But, I'm quite amazed of what a low power skus can achieve considering it's based on 32nm process.
 
Last edited:
May 11, 2008
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My 4c/4t piledriver based system without discrete gpu did 34Watts at the inlet when idle.
For an 8 core system that number is fitting.

Complete system was :
4 fans : 1 CPU fan, 1 PSU fan, 2 case fans.
PSU : Antec Earth watts 380W.
OS : Windows 7 Home Premium SP1 [6.1 Build 7601] (x64)
SSD : Crucial_CT256M550SSD1 : 256,0 GB
HDD : WDC WD5000AAKX-00ERMA0 : 500,1 GB.
DVD writer : Optiarc.
RAM : 8GB 1600MHz ddr3 dram.
MB : GA-F2A75M-HD2
APU : A10-6700.

Now with an RX480, seasonic psu and the internal gpu disabled it is at 51 watts idle.
 

VirtualLarry

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Hmm, just suddenly restarted on me. Very strange. Then immediately did updates. But it didn't feel like a "clean" shutdown, it happened in the middle of me using the PC.
 

UsandThem

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May 4, 2000
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Hmm, just suddenly restarted on me. Very strange. Then immediately did updates. But it didn't feel like a "clean" shutdown, it happened in the middle of me using the PC.

If it's Windows 10, it happens to my kids and wife all the time because they never notice updates have been installed, and require a reboot. Ignore it long enough, and it will do it for you.
 
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VirtualLarry

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If it were due to a Windows 10 Update pending, why would reliability monitor put up a red X for the day and time it rebooted? Like I said, it didn't appear to be a "clean" shutdown / restart.
 

UsandThem

Elite Member
May 4, 2000
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If it were due to a Windows 10 Update pending, why would reliability monitor put up a red X for the day and time it rebooted? Like I said, it didn't appear to be a "clean" shutdown / restart.

That I don't know. On the PCs I mentioned, there's nothing in the reliability monitor. My kids and wife just put off restarting their PCs for so long, I just always hear them whine about wanting to do something with their PC, but it had automatically restarted to finish installing the updates. It sounds like your update issue is something else.
 
May 11, 2008
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Hmm, just suddenly restarted on me. Very strange. Then immediately did updates. But it didn't feel like a "clean" shutdown, it happened in the middle of me using the PC.

I had this happen to me as well , while i was gaming. I thought the game or the graphic driver had crashed but it turned out Windows 10 needed to do some updates and restarted.
I had a rant thread about it a while ago.

At settings / restart options.
Set the "show more notifications" button to on to get more and better notifications.
 

Insert_Nickname

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May 6, 2012
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My 4c/4t piledriver based system without discrete gpu did 34Watts at the inlet when idle.

My old 6800K got by with 22W at long idle. But when loaded it routinely broke 120W, with spikes upwards of 140W. Video decoding was 30-50W depending on source.

This was with a relatively inefficient CX430 PSU.

My Ryzen idles at ~70W. With 32GB RAM, an NVMe drive, two 7200RPM spinners, a full ATX board, and a 1060, I don't find that particularly unreasonable. Stays under 200W when gaming too, with the average around 150W.

This is with a Seasonic SS-660XP2.
 
May 11, 2008
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My old 6800K got by with 22W at long idle. But when loaded it routinely broke 120W, with spikes upwards of 140W. Video decoding was 30-50W depending on source.

This was with a relatively inefficient CX430 PSU.

My Ryzen idles at ~70W. With 32GB RAM, an NVMe drive, two 7200RPM spinners, a full ATX board, and a 1060, I don't find that particularly unreasonable. Stays under 200W when gaming too, with the average around 150W.

This is with a Seasonic SS-660XP2.

Good to know about the ryzen. The system i have, has a power consumption of 121W for the full system when doing prime 95.

From my other thread (using igpu only and no discrete gpu):
measurements.jpg~original


measurementsrx480.jpg~original


The system is not that bad when it comes to power consumption. I want to build a home theater pc with it after i finally have my new pc.

I wonder what the upcoming zen+ based ryzen cpu's will do in idle power consumption and load comsumption.
Just two months more waiting.
 
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Mr Evil

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Jul 24, 2015
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I think that's about normal; both CPUs and GPUs became much better at power management a few years ago. When I had an 8370E, 16GB, Fury, and 2 SSDs, the system used 60-70W at idle, depending on the conditions.

The improvements are continuing too, with my current 1800X, 32GB, Vega 64, and 2 SSDs using 58W as I type this.

Once you get down to lower levels of power consumption like this, unexpected things start to have a significant effect on the total. For instance I can shave a couple of watts off by turning my case lighting down, and the fans use a few if they are spinning faster.
 

hojnikb

Senior member
Sep 18, 2014
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This data is really meaningless without knowing what board, psu and wattmeter is used. There can be a huge discrepancy.
 

VirtualLarry

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Aug 25, 2001
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This data is really meaningless without knowing what board, psu and wattmeter is used. There can be a huge discrepancy.
Mine is the Gigabyte 78LMT-USB3 R2, PSU is EVGA 400W 80Plus, power meter is a Kill-A-Watt EZ P4460 or whatever the model was with the battery that keeps track of usage over time.
(Although, the number I gave you was the instantaneous wattage.)
 

Mr Evil

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Jul 24, 2015
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mrevil.asvachin.com
This data is really meaningless without knowing what board, psu and wattmeter is used. There can be a huge discrepancy.
If you wanted accuracy, you would also need to know mains voltage, temperature, all the attached peripherals, and other details. I think what's been given in the thread so far is sufficient to get a rough idea though.
 
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