What is your desktop power usage while browsing these forums?

[mikeymikec]

I'm surprised so many people have killawatt devices or something similar.

I have an adapter for measuring power usage at the wall socket because energy prices are only going up (at least in the foreseeable future) and energy efficiency is becoming more important.

I'm really surprised at the lack of a spike on the poll graph, I would have expected something between say 50 - 120W. Or maybe a few different spikes denoting laptops/HTPCs, IGP PCs and gaming PCs.

 

[bgt]

For the FX8350: 68W while browsing. PC is with a 7850 card now. I noticed idle consumption has a lot to do with the video card 1 is using. With a 7750 I get a lower idle consumption.
PSU used: BeQuiet 500W F1 Efficiency(80 Plus Gold)
For the i7 + 7950 = 53W idle

 

[Ken g6]

So, what is your power consumption at the wall for your rig when you are posting/browsing this forum without much else going on in the background for your computer?

This rarely happens. (See sig.) But just for you I tried suspending everything, and got 72W, on my Core 2 Quad with GTX 460. Seems like it used to be as low as the 40s without the 460, with undervolting, but the CPU and chipset don't seem to be up to onboard graphics or undervolting anymore.

 

[VirtualLarry]

I get 43-46W on my Sandy Bridge G630 w/8GB (2x4GB) DDR3-1333, 120GB SSD, DVD-RW, and GeForce GT430 card.

 

[Mixolydian]

~75w including monitor. That's with just the web browser window open.

I have an Intel i7 3770, 16GB RAM, OCZ SSD, DVD drive, 23" LCD monitor, etc.

 

[Ajay]

Don't know how accurate my UPS display is, but ~175 watts D: Rig is in sig (+ a couple of quiet 140mm fans).

When I first checked (running CPU + GPU Folding@Home) it was 450 watts; no wonder why my power bill sucks in the winter :'(

Edit: the were at my winter F@H setting (3.6 GHz CPU/800 MHz GPUs). I don't fold on my main rid in the summer, so I boost the clocks for better gaming.

So based on my rig specs below, idle is probably ~225 watts!

 

[Smartazz]

95 watts desktop and surge protector alone
137 watts including monitor

 

[Charlie98]

88W...? Rig in sig plus 3X HDDs and an external, plus a cell phone booster cradle.

That's higher than I thought!

123W at the wall... through the UPS, includes monitor and amp, calculator, lamp... everything on my desk.

220w on LinX, 330w on 3DMark.11

I probably need to throw the Kill-O on the old Pentium D upstairs and see what it's drawing...

 

[2is]

I'm at 75-85watts once the page has loaded and I'm just reading. That number spikes to 130 watts when loading a new page if that page has some animations or video.

The only other pertinent info that isn't in my sig is my CPU is OC'd to 4.2GHz with a +.020 offset. 2 DVDRW drives and 1 BluRay burner

My full load with both the CPU and GTX 680 (not overclocked during the test) was 370 Watts.

My idle usage is a bit higher than I'd like, but my full load usage is lower than I thought it would be.

 

[bononos]

How accurate are the clamp type meters vs kill-a-watt?

 

[Termie]

I'm at 75-85watts once the page has loaded and just reading. That number spikes to 130 watts when loading a new page if that page has some animations or video.

The only other pertinent info that isn't in my sig is my CPU is OC'd to 4.2GHz with a +.020 offset. 2 DVDRW drives and 1 BluRay burner

My full load with both the CPU and GTX 680 (not overclocked during the test) was 370 Watts.

My idle usage is a bit higher than I'd like, but my full load usage is lower than I thought it would be.

That does seem rather high. You sure you have all power saving on? Your system is basically identical to mine. Maybe try switching the various BIOS settings from auto to enabled.

 

[2is]

That does seem rather high. You sure you have all power saving on? Your system is basically identical to mine. Maybe try switching the various BIOS settings from auto to enabled.

I just checked my bios and enabled all the C states (they were set to auto) I also noticed I had my ram slightly over-volted and brought that back down to where it should be. I'm still in the 75-85 range in the poll, but at the bottom end of that spectrum vs the top end of it earlier.

 

[Edgemeal]

Voted 50-60W @ Idle, of course W goes up if HDD's are active for any length of time.

Just a few wattages I saved when building this i5 rig....

i5 3570k (@ stock w/Cooler Master EVO 212 120mm)
mobo - Asus P8Z77-V LK [BIOS 0404]
ram - 8GB GEIL 1600 DDR3 @ 1333 9-9-9-24 1T
video - Onboard HD 4000 GPU
SSD - Mushkin 60GB
HDD - WD 300GB 10K RPM
HDD - Seagate 320GB 7200 RPM
PSU - Antec PB550 80+ (550W).
fans - 3x Cooler Master 80mm thermal sensor controled.
onboard - sound & LAN.

Windows 7 @ Idle:
=================
Power usage: 44-45W.

1080p/Surround Sound (Big Buck Bunny.AVI)
VLC v2.04 (GPU Acc. is enabled in VLC).
=========================================
Power usage: 48-49W

CineBench 11.5 (Max watts)
==========================
OpenGL....: 78W (Score 20.63)
CPU Render: 96W (Score 6.01)


With HD6670 1GB DDR3
+ i5-3750k @ All Cores Turbo @ 4GHz
-----------------------------------
Windows 7 @ Idle:
=================
Power usage: 56W.

CineBench 11.5 (Max watts)
==========================
OpenGL....: 112W (Score 35.31)
CPU Render: 123W (Score 6.70)

 

[Cookie Monster]

Between 70~85W (including spikes).

Rig in my sig.

 

[Ferzerp]

I definitely know that one of the Asus updates on my P7P55D Evo drastically increased idle wattage. I rolled back to the previous BIOS to avoid that issue. Now you have me thinking - could it have been some of the power-saving features being turned off with "auto"?

The trouble with this being the sole answer is that some of the features can actually be monitored, like core idles clocks and core idle voltage. Those are probably the biggest energy savers, and they can't go unnoticed all that easily if you have CPU-z running. I'm still going to test this out, though, to see if I can drive my idle watts down lower with some of the other power settings.

Under the settings I was using, it wasn't even downclocking on idle, but instead staying at 4.4Ghz even with no load. So yes, it was very obvious it was happening.

 

[Vic Vega]

I have no idea what my power usage is... though most of the time due to AMD Cool and Quiet my CPU seems to sit at 800 MHz. Periodically it jumps to 2,200 MHz and on occasion it will jump to the full 4,100 MHz. Even when I have multiple virtual machines running (like right now) it's sitting at 800 MHz. If I start up a game or something it will jump up. Even watching 1080p video it will sit at 800 MHz.

Edit: For instance, right now I am installing SP1 on a Win 7 VM I just build. The VM has 4 cores assigned. CPU is 800 MHz according to Core Temp. CPU usage is 10-20%.

 

[nanaki333]

.052 kW/hr with no monitor attached


measured at my UPS

i7 3960x
32GB kingston hyperX
1x gtx titan
2x velociraptor 1TB (raid 0)
1x 480GB muschkin chronos (games)
1x samsung 840 pro (boot)

 

[Idontcare]

How accurate are the clamp type meters vs kill-a-watt?

Should be nearly the same if not the same for all practical purposes.

For this type of unscientific survey where the error bars are to be generously assumed as > +/- 10% (IMO) the differences, if any, between a clamp vs a KaW are going to be within the noise.

Just make sure the clamp is measuring the PSU cable on the wall-outlet side and not the cables going to the mobo from the PSU, the PSU inefficiency counts in this survey since you are paying for that inefficiency in your power bill

 

[nanaki333]

.072 kW/hr with no monitor attached
.081 kW/hr while watching a standard def video

measured at my UPS

i7 3960x
32GB kingston hyperX
2x gtx titan
2x velociraptor 1TB (raid 0)
1x 480GB muschkin chronos (games)
1x samsung 840 pro (boot)

so a slight jump with my second titan in.

 

[2is]

I decided to compare my sig machine with an older core 2 duo machine.

Specs:
C2D e7300 (stock)
2x2GB DDR3 1066
HD 4850 512MB (stock)
160GB 7200RPM drive
550 watt Enermax PSU (passive PFC)
DVDRW
mATX Asus board with G41 chipset

Computers plugged in but turned off:
Sig machine = 1.5-1.7w
Above machine = 3.5w

Fully booted up and idle:
Sig machine = 75-80w
Above machine = 90 watts

Full load:
Sig machine 370w
Above machine: 230w

It's pretty cool that a machine with so much more power on tap is more efficient in day-to-day usage and can pack a mean punch when needed.

 

[Zodiark1593]

Well, I currently only have a laptop, so here's the specs and power use.

17" HP DV7
Intel Core i5-460M
6 GB DDR3 1.5 volts
Mobility Radeon 5470 (switchable, so it's off when not in use)

With the power saver mode enabled, Radeon GPU disabled, screen at half brightness, and the CPU further underclocked to ~900 MHz, I pull just over 13 watts at the wall. The battery is a 90 watt, so I get pretty good battery life for being a large laptop. Gaming loads with the cpu at standard speed, and the GPU enabled, and screen brightness at max, I pull about 53 watts at the wall.

 

[ClockHound]

~750W

Stuck with the your power-sipping netbook again? ;-)

 

[Idontcare]

It's pretty cool that a machine with so much more power on tap is more efficient in day-to-day usage and can pack a mean punch when needed.

That is what I find crazy awesome about these 22nm cpus.

The lower active-idle is great, that saves money as a gift that keeps on giving, but you got all the performance capability in reserve, waiting in the wings so to speak, and at a moments notice you are able to throw four cores at 4GHz or so speeds into a problem to really slog it out.

I'm use to the low-power environment from my laptop, as others have deftly spoken too in this thread (thank you for all the contributions from the laptop owner crowd out there :thumbsup.

Like Zodiark1593, I too have a 17" laptop and from an active-idle standpoint it is every bit as capable as my 3770k desktop (I can't tell the difference between the two when browsing these forums for example). But the laptop obviously tops out in a way that the 3770k doesn't when the going gets tough. The performance range on the laptop is much more restricted.

None of that is news though, not news to you and not news to me. What was news to me was that the active idle power usage of my desktop rig was approaching that of my desktop-replacement laptop.

I just checked the true idle power load of the desktop and it is 36W at the wall. That's silly low from my perspective. I love it, can't wait to see where Intel and AMD go with this in the future.

I feel like I just discovered my lambo can get the same gas mileage as my prius if I drive the speed limit in town. Of course that isn't true, my lambo doesn't get 50mpg just because I drive it at 25mph when taking the kids to school, but in computer-land it kind of is becoming true with these APU-based processors and ever more refined power control on the motherboards and inside the PSUs.

I can have my cake and eat it too. I can have my lambo (3770k) get the same gas mileage as my Prius (laptop) when doing pedestrian stuff but I can still drop the hammer and gun it up to 200mph when I really need to brute force my way through a crowd to get that cherry parking spot close to the grocery store door

 

[jaqie]

A few years back top gear did a mileage driving competition race thing and the jaguar with the v8 and twin turbos did as well as the tiny economobiles. It's all in how you use them, was the verdict, and for most that is true, though there are most definitely exceptions (like the supercars and hypercars, et al). They found if you thrashed the little economobiles their mileage goes through the floor which you had to do with some of them to just drive everyday, and if you drove the nice big jag sanely its mileage was wonderful.

This is becoming true for computers as well.

 

[2is]

I highly doubt that. I have two vehicles, one with a 160hp I4 and another with a 306hp V6 and both driven conservatively there's no way in hell they get similar mileage. Thrash the I4 and drive the v6 conservatively and maybe they'll be similar. Maybe if I remove a spark plug from my 4 banger it will only be as efficient.

I'd say computer are there and getting better and cars are only just getting there, not the other way around.