i7 920 idles @ 57w

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Hello

My i7 920 idles at 57w in 'Power Saver' mode in the preferred plans under Power Options in Vista. It's down-clocked by speedstep to 1600Mhz and the vcore is 0.85v

Lately I've been more interested in going green with my machines. My daily pc is rig1 in sig. This too is in power saver mode. I am not aware of the wattage use because the C2Qs don't show this through CPUID Hardware monitor.

Would it be worth the venture of upgrading the platform (CPU, MOBO, & RAM) to another i7 920 like mentioned above?



Above is a SS of the wattage use on the i7.

 

[Farfrumhumpn]

If you're worried about green computing then you need a $25 Kill-A-Watt to tell where you're at for total power consumption but sadly green doesn't apply to the rig in your sig. Under load you're prob pulling 200 - 250w which although is good isn't exactly green. At idle your draw will prob be nearer to 100w but a green machine would have a load draw about that.

The best thing you can do to get the most savings out of your machine if yuou've not already done so is to undervolt your CPU as much as possible along with getting a more suitable PSU because a 950w PSU is not going to maintain it's peak effiency under 75% load. You should look into a much more effecient 300 - 400w PSU.

The power saving of an i7 over a C2Q in idle will be decent but not really noticeable on the monthly power bill but the increase in overall system speed may be noticeable.

I'd say invest in a Kill-A-Watt, check the idle and load power of your system then try undervolting your CPU as much as you can without losing stability then recheck the numbers an I bet you'll shave off 10 - 30w right there.

 

[Lonyo]

Haha.
You can't be very interested in going green if you are considering another i7 920 to replace the current system.

Yes, an i7 is better than a Core 2 Quad by around 20w, but an i7 8xx is better than the 9xx by a further 30w.
If you really want to go green, you won't buy an i7 920.

 

[Jd007]

Is your 920 OC'd at all? My non-OC'd D0 920 idles at 25.13W. When there are tiny bits of load here and there, it "idles" at 49.97W, but when there's nothing running in the background it goes down to 25.13W. Full load (4 cores, 8 threads at Turbo 2.83Ghz) it shows 151.08W.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Is your 920 OC'd at all? My non-OC'd D0 920 idles at 25.13W. When there are tiny bits of load here and there, it "idles" at 49.97W, but when there's nothing running in the background it goes down to 25.13W. Full load (4 cores, 8 threads at Turbo 2.83Ghz) it shows 151.08W.

I have not overclocked it at all. I just have Speedstep & Turbo enabled (2.8Ghz 21x133)

Idle is 57w with the Asrock Energy saver. Ironically with the Energy saver disabled in bios, it idles at 49w. And when it hits full load it will hit 151w

I have seen low watts like you before (25-30w) but they appear only for a brief brief second or two. Maybe it's your motherboard; I wonder how you see such low watts..

Correct me if I'm wrong but the watts is the indicator of lower (greener) use or is it the vcore as the best indicator?

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Well, I just got back from the store with a Appliance Load Tester. I was looking for Kill-A-Watt but both Lowes and Home Depot don't have them in stock. The Load Tester is by Reliance and it gives Watt & Amp usage.

Plugged in right now and I am getting a range of 116 - 132 watts with just Firefox opened on the Q9650 rig.

I'm going to try it in the i7 920 rig next. brb

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

With the i7 920 it idles at around 141w and between 200 -230w playing Unreal Tournament III

 

[KeypoX]

How about with your monitor? Whats the total load of your total computer. How much was that power meter? I have been wanting one, i bet my machine pulls alot of power. Im also very curious about idle/load in 7 vs osx.

 

[Jd007]

How about with your monitor? Whats the total load of your total computer. How much was that power meter? I have been wanting one, i bet my machine pulls alot of power. Im also very curious about idle/load in 7 vs osx.

Normal LCD monitors draw 40-50W max. The ones with speakers just add 4-8W. In standby mode most LCDs draw only a few watts, ~2 maybe.

 

[KeypoX]

Normal LCD monitors draw 40-50W max. The ones with speakers just add 4-8W. In standby mode most LCDs draw only a few watts, ~2 maybe.

wouldnt it depend on size? I have a 24" and 19" dual monitor setup, i always feel bad with this setup. I should get a killawatt.

Dell lists the power spec as, for my 24"

Power Consumption Operational:
50 Watts (typical); 80 Watts (maximum)
Power Consumption Stand by / Sleep:
Less than 2 Watts

And samsung as
38 Watts (Max.)

Not to bad i guess...

 

[Lonyo]

With the i7 920 it idles at around 141w and between 200 -230w playing Unreal Tournament III

I bet you're glad you've got those 950w PSUs, right?

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

How about with your monitor? Whats the total load of your total computer. How much was that power meter? I have been wanting one, i bet my machine pulls alot of power. Im also very curious about idle/load in 7 vs osx.

The Q9650 has settled down to ~ 108w not including the LED (27w)

I did set the Q9650 DRAM voltage to 1.8v from Auto, but there was no way to tell what the DRAM voltage was 'autoing' before. It may have been 2.1 or 2.0v I know my i7 DRAM voltage is 1.56v but not with this Q9650 rig unless its manually set. I also turned down the speed of the 120mm fans so that may have helped also.

I bought the Reliance load tester from Lowes for 32$ but I'd like to cross check the tester with the Kill-A-Watt EZ reader. I just like reliable information.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

I bet you're glad you've got those 950w PSUs, right?

No-thanks

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

The i7 920 has been idling for around 20min and the system, not including the LCD, is idling at 138w

 

[Farfrumhumpn]

I honestly thought it would idle lower as the i7's low power state was supposed to be all that.

You'd prob shave off a few watts by getting a PSU properly ated for your system, when you are that far under a PSU's load the efeciency drops off though maybe only by 5% tops. If anything you can prob get a top quality 300 - 400w PSU with cash to spare if you sell your 950w unit. I say the Enermax 82+ series would be a good place to look as they are very very effecient and I bet the 300w unit would be absolutely perfect for your rig.

Looking at the above chart I would say you'd be better off with the i7 8xx or i5 7xx series. The numbers will of course get lower after you undervolt the CPU which will also drop temps as well.

Try undervolting your i7 and C2Q setup over the next day and recheck power useage and see what kind of difference it makes, you can use that chart as a rough comparison to compare the wattage useage of your CPU's undervoltaed compared to the other CPU's on that chart.

I find the best way to start undervolting is keep dropping the vcore down .025v at a time untill the system will hang after loading windows then from there I make notch by notch increases untill it loads into windows sucessfully then I start stress testing. That or google the processor model you have along with " undervolting" and you'll likely find a link to an SPCR forum page where people haev already found the generic minimum Vcore for any given CPU model.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Thanks for the reply Farfrumhumpn - heh

As for the i7 machine, that is an idle reading, not gaming nor overclocked. When I bought the PSU's I was into Overclocking. I had my first Q9650 running 4Ghz on an h20 setup to game with. I didn't start thinking "Green" until after I bought the PSUs

Here is a chart from JonnyGuru, of the Enermax Revo 850:


It's probably safe to say the 950w is in accordance with the 850w. My main concern when getting a PSU is the ripple and noise(mv) I also like to have modular cables and a decent efficiency rate. The PSUs I bought are well suited for OCing rigs and that was and is an option I like to have.

Actually rig 2 is a moch system for my 3rd build which will probably house an h20 cooling system, will be overclock, and will probably house a 5970. From what the Anandtech review said about the 5970, an i7 @ 3.3Ghz with an overclocked 5970 will eat up 650w but again that is a machine that will not be on unless I game.

I also did consider an i7 8xx or i5 7xx series but the 32nm 1366 chips will probably offer comparable numbers.

So, from a little 32$ purchase, I've learned that going to an i7 920 would not be the thing to do.

 

[Darkrage]

Not to be off topic, but I curious to why you have so many rigs BTRY?