Your computer's power consumption - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / general

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2020, 03:54:10 pm
content: The past few months I've been looking into the power consumption of various systems. Reviews report power consumption in various ways, but I'm curious what people are seeing in real life situations. Have any of you measured the power consumption and power factor of your system while idle and under full load and what did you find? It'd help if you could list the relevant hardware too, especially the GPU as that seems to be dominating consumption.

author: SiliconWizard
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2020, 05:22:49 pm
content: Well, haven't looked with a dedicated meter, so I'm basing the following on what my UPS reports. Probably good enough here.On idle, my workstation + LCD monitor (both are on the UPS) draw something like 130W-140W. Yes this is big for idling. On light load, the figure doesn't go up a lot. Maybe around 150W.On full load, that's another story. Never looked at the consumption when the CPU was at 100% and the GPU under full load, but for 100% CPU alone (and moderate graphics use), it goes up to 300W or so. With 100% GPU use, I'd expect close to 450W. But my GPU is modest.Main components: Core i7-5930K@4.4GHz, 64GB DDR4 RAM, NVidia GTX1060 GPU, an additional Firewire PCIe card, 2 SSDs, Asus X99 deluxe motherboard...

author: capt bullshot
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2020, 05:40:19 pm
content: My daily driver (a Dell Precision M4800, Core i7-4800MQ) consumes around 33W idle (Ubuntu, docking station with two external monitors connected) and up to 96W at full CPU load. It has a nvidia GPU and I have to enable it to drive the external monitors, but I don't use it for anything else, so I can't tell what it would consume at full CPU and GPU load. I didn't measure the external monitors, these are quite old models, so I'm expecting 30 ... 40W per monitor.I've also got a small Lenovo box (Core i5-6500T), running as a headless server, it consumes 8W idle and up to about 30W at full CPU load.

author: james_s
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2020, 05:46:15 pm
content: I've measured mine for years. My old Pentium4 idled at 153W and under full load it pulled just a little over 200W. The Core i7 I replaced it with idles at around 98W and spikes to a bit over 150W at full load. The mini i7 that runs my Plex server idles at around 6W, rising to just under 20W under load.I've wondered for years why there was a wattage race in desktop PSUs. I see people recommending 600W-1kW power supplies which is ridiculous when I've never had a desktop that pulls much over 200W from the wall. Even a high end gaming PC with a fancy video card probably doesn't draw more than 400W.

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2020, 05:51:27 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on May 03, 2020, 05:46:15 pmTop end CPU and dual GPU setups with an extreme overclock can be stupidly power hungry, but it mostly seems to be about bragging rights. The gaming pc enthusiast market seems to cater to the boy racer type a lot.

author: Tom45
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2020, 06:04:41 pm
content: From UPS: 135 idle, 450-500 watts full load on both cpu and gpuCPU: i7-5820K @3.3 GHz, 32 GB memoryGPU: GTX 980tiDisks: 500 GB SSD, 4 TB HD, 2 TB HDMonitors: 24" ASUS, 27" Benq

author: Mr. Scram
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2020, 06:11:46 pm
content: I'm finding that modern powers supplies seem to come with fairly terrible power factors. That gets better when they're substantially loaded, but often it's still not great. Modern power supplies do have very low stand by consumption. Has anyone measured their power factor? I'll see whether I can rig up some numbers, but I may need to order some additional hardware.

author: Ice-Tea
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2020, 06:12:51 pm
content: Quote from: james_s on May 03, 2020, 05:46:15 pmA 2080ti does 400W all on its own, so...

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2020, 06:14:33 pm
content: Don't know if you are interested in laptops, but I have an ASUS ROG GL703GE with i7-8750h and GTX1050Ti.Measured at the wall, battery not charging.Doing more or less nothing, lid closed 25WLid open, doing nothing 35W.Running Cinebench R15 CPU test 92WRunning Cinebench R15 GPU test 104W.The power supply is rated for 150W max output.

author: 0db
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2020, 06:15:08 pm
content: Atm, 20Watt on a laptop

author: bdunham7
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2020, 06:17:28 pm
content: Quote from: Mr. Scram on May 03, 2020, 06:11:46 pm.84 at 35W (idle).96 at 104W (GPU test)Standby power is very low if the computer is off, I don't remember it and I don't want to go offline right now, but less than 0.2W.

author: SeanB
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2020, 08:06:50 pm
content: Around 150VA, but that is the whole lot, including the 4G router, the 32in TV monitor, and the PC along with a powered USB hub. Monitor off it sits around 100VA. Nothing fancy, just a Core 2 running Mint.

author: brucehoult
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: May 03, 2020, 08:38:52 pm
content: 6 W idle, 25 W busy: NUC with i7-8650U (4.2 GHz single core, 3.4 GHz on all four cores until it gets hot, then 2.85 W idle, 375 W busy: tower with water cooled ThreadRipper 2990wx (4.2 GHz single core, 3.4 GHz on all 32, forever)