iMac running 24/7

[phexac]

I have a 24" 1.5-year-old iMac with Radeon HD2600 Pro and 2.8GHz C2D as the secondary house computer. We recently started using VOIP (which works fine) and the caveat is that you have to have your computer running 24/7 for the phone to work. Obviously, the screen turns off pretty quick, so that's not on most of the time.

My question is 3-fold. First of all, does this stand to significantly diminish the life of the Mac? Second, what's a ballpark figure of power consumption for this type of Mac just idling along? Lastly, what does a Mac do to lower its power usage when just idling and not going to sleep?

I apologize if these questions seem really basic, but I really don't know as much about Macs as I do about PCs, and there does not seem to be as much tech-oriented information about Macs as there is about PCs.

EDIT: speaking of which, what is a good techy Mac site that does reviews of Mac hardware at the level of anandtech or tomshardware?

 

[ViRGE]

1) No.

2) Apple doesn't publish idle power numbers, so I have no idea.

3) It basically does everything a PC does. The display, as you note, is shut off. The hard drives are also spun down. The CPU is put in to the lowest power state (C-state) that current operations will allow. And the GPU is allowed to idle too.

 

[timswim78]

Someone is borrowing my kill-a-watt right now, so I cannot test my iMac. However, others have stated that the iMac consumes about 95W, under load, with the monitor on. With the monitor off, under load, it consumes about 65W.

As a guess, I would say that it will use somewhere in the nieghborhood of 40W-50W if the disk drive is spun down, maybe less.

 

[phexac]

Cool thanks

 

[speg]

This isn't 2006 anymore, Macs have the same internals as "PCs".

 

[Ayah]

Originally posted by: speg
This isn't 2006 anymore, Macs have the same internals as "PCs".

An iMac is a completely proprietary machine. The basic chips will be the same, but custom formfactor and layout.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: ViRGE
2) Apple doesn't publish idle power numbers, so I have no idea.

They do

 

[sjwaste]

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: ViRGE
2) Apple doesn't publish idle power numbers, so I have no idea.

They do

Those have to be with the display on, though. Look at the difference between the almost identically configured 20" and 24" 2.66 GHz models. That can't be the extra 2GB stick or larger HD

OP: Your best bet is to buy a kilawatt and check for yourself. They run about $15 from Newegg, probably worth it just for the curiosity factor.

 

[mugs]

Originally posted by: sjwaste

Originally posted by: mugs

Originally posted by: ViRGE
2) Apple doesn't publish idle power numbers, so I have no idea.

They do

Those have to be with the display on, though. Look at the difference between the almost identically configured 20" and 24" 2.66 GHz models. That can't be the extra 2GB stick or larger HD

OP: Your best bet is to buy a kilawatt and check for yourself. They run about $15 from Newegg, probably worth it just for the curiosity factor.

That appears to be so, but it'll give him the ballpark he's looking for. Figure somewhere between 30 and 60 watts, so $3-7 per month.