Some results for my system as below

System:

E2160 Default Vcore - Overclocked to 2.7GHz and EIST enabled Idle 1.80GHz
MSI P35 Neo2-FR
2GB Corsair TwinX
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 3450 Silence
Samsung 500Gb
Hiper 630 SLI PSU
DVDRW
P182 No fans only CPU Arctic Cooling Freezer 7 Pro with smart fan enabled
Dell SP2208WFP

Results:

Idle with Monitor off 47w
Idle with Monitor on 86w
Running Othos CPU @ 2.7GHz 114w

------------------------------------------------

There is a nice little website put up by Thermaltake, so you can calculate the power usage/needs of your PC. Helps you to pick a suitable PSU.

http://www.thermaltake.outervision.com/

Quite useful in working out how much your PC uses anyway. I used it to work out how much it costs to run my PC.

Those are crap tbh, they are usually miles out. Most PSU manufactures have a page like that. An example of how bad they are can been seen with the source code of the BeQuiet calculator, it adds 900W on top of what the system would use anyway when you select a GTX 295, obviously they make more money if a customers buys a higher rated PSU There was a thread discussing such websites on here recently, but i can't find it :/

i did do some power testing on my q9550 media pc, going by my results its pulling more power than most of the systems listed in this thread.

then again it could be due to my testing methods which are quite xtreme.

http://www.xtremesystems.org/forums/showthread.php?t=227172

Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition clocked at 3.2GHz (1.325v Stock Volts)
BFG GeForce GTX 295 1792MB (Stock Clock)
OCZ 2x2GB PC3-1333C7 PlatinumWD VelociRaptor 300GB
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium - Fatal1ty Champion Series
3 x YATE LOON 120mm Case Fan - D12SL-12
Ambit Broadband Modem

Click to expand...

40°C idle = 171W

53°C load = 270W (Using LinX)

48°C load = 298W (Playing Test Drive Unlimited)

49°C load = 365W to 375W (Using Street Fighter IV Benchmark)

50°C load = 360W to 375W (Using Crysis Benchmark)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition clocked at 3.8GHz (1.450v Volts)
BFG GeForce GTX 295 1792MB (Stock Clock)
OCZ 2x2GB PC3-1333C7 PlatinumWD VelociRaptor 300GB
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium - Fatal1ty Champion Series
3 x YATE LOON 120mm Case Fan - D12SL-12
Ambit Broadband Modem

Click to expand...

45°C idle = 205W

65°C load = 360W (Using LinX)

58°C load = 350W (Playing Test Drive Unlimited)

56°C load = 397W to 407W (Using Street Fighter IV Benchmark)

57°C load = 339W to 412W (Using Crysis Benchmark)

Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition clocked at 3.2GHz (1.325v Stock Volts)
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4890 Vapor-X 2048MB(Stock Clock)
OCZ 2x2GB PC3-1333C7 PlatinumWD VelociRaptor 300GB
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium - Fatal1ty Champion Series
3 x YATE LOON 120mm Case Fan - D12SL-12
Ambit Broadband Modem

Click to expand...

40°C idle = 192W

53°C load = 280W (Using LinX)

48°C load = 275-285W (Playing Test Drive Unlimited)

49°C load = 304W to 311W (Using Street Fighter IV Benchmark)

50°C load = 306W to 315W (Using Crysis Benchmark)
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Gigabyte MA790FXT-UD5P
AMD Phenom II X4 955 Black Edition clocked at 3.8GHz (1.450v Volts)
Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4890 Vapor-X 2048MB (Stock Clock)
OCZ 2x2GB PC3-1333C7 PlatinumWD VelociRaptor 300GB
Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium - Fatal1ty Champion Series
3 x YATE LOON 120mm Case Fan - D12SL-12
Ambit Broadband Modem

Click to expand...

45°C idle = 230W

65°C load = 265W (Using LinX)

58°C load = 335W to 340W(Playing Test Drive Unlimited)

56°C load = 347W to 357W (Using Street Fighter IV Benchmark)

57°C load = 350W to 360W (Using Crysis Benchmark)

Conclusion

(-) Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4890 Vapor-X 2048MB uses 20W more at idle than BFG GeForce GTX 295 1792MB

(+) Sapphire ATI Radeon HD 4890 Vapor-X 2048MB uses 50W LESS on full load than BFG GeForce GTX 295 1792MB

IMPORTANT READ THIS: CLICK HERE

jonnyGURU said:

On the consumer level, there really isn't any options to the Kill-A-Watt and other devices like it. And I can't see somone paying hundreds of dollars for equipment just to measure power consumption unless the review power supplies or do something for a living that would require that.

Some people say adjust for efficiency (80%) and then consider keeping the load within 50 to 75% of whatever PSU's capability. So for example, 300W from the wall, x 80%, 320 WDC... 500W to 550W PSU. But to take into consideration inaccuracy of the Kill-A-Watt and immeasurable transients, I would just suggest double whatever the Kill-A-Watt is reading as a PSU recommendation. So 300W from the wall, 600W PSU. Just to be "safe". You're still not suggesting 1600W PSU's for people with 8800 GT cards (one side of the spectrum) but your not telling people to buy 380W PSU's that will die in a year's time due to stress (other side of the spectrum.)

Click to expand...

Basically the Kill-A-Watt meters do not give an accurate rating for efficiency, read the whole thread for details.

AtaRo said:

Specs below.CPU utilization @ 25%.Running 4 GPU fah clients + 1 standard client (not SMP).Consumes about 460watts from the wall down from 530watts due to underclocking.

MSI P7N Diamond
Q6600 @ 1.6GHZ (underclock)
4GB RAM 1GBx4
320GB disk
1 optical
couple fans
9800 GX2
9600GT
8800 GTS 640MB
1 pci card
OCZ ProXStream 1000w

Click to expand...

Why did you underclock your Q6600

Anyone with i5 750 etc tested their power usage yet? say at 4GHz?

Will be doing mine in about 10 days when I recieve Windows 7 Retail, not doing my build till then.

mtb_kng said:

Why did you underclock your Q6600

Click to expand...

He probably runs it at stock speed of 2.4Ghz, but when you have speedstep enabled when idle it drops the multiplier from 9x to 6x so clockspeed drops to 1.6Ghz.

Here's mine:

IDLE = ~190W
Intel Burn Test (CPU maxed) = ~360W
Furmark extreme burn (GPU maxed) = ~480W

So with a quick bit of math I make that 650W maximum usage were I to fully load both the CPU & GPU at the same time, lucky then I have an 850W PSU.

My specs are i7 @4ghz, GTX480 @850mhz, 12gb ram, watercooling pump, external soundcard, hdd/dvd-rw etc.

Turning on speedstep brb

Super thread !

Tuvoc said:

Yes - from what I read, Plasmas use a lot more power than LCD, I would not buy one

Click to expand...

Plasma power usage is a Myth. The quoted power rating is for 100% contrast, 100% brightness, a 100% white screen, and sound on max playing pink noise.

Watching a movie (with the power meter hooked up to the TV), my 42inch panasonic plasma varies between 70 watts, and about 180 watts. Yes very very occasionally it will draw over 300watts, but generally thats just for a fraction of a second and then its back down to <180 watts.

In normal use plasma uses only a tiny bit more power than an LCD TV, be it a standard cold cathode LCD, or even the newer LED/LCD panels. As LCD TV's use more or less the same power for a full white bright screen, as they do for a fully black screen. (Yes with dynamic backlighting the LCD does some of the same tricks as the plasma, with varying power usage. But the LCD panel itself uses a fair chunk of power).

I know a great site that focuses specifically on quiet low power computing, it's just a review site and forum, am I within the forum rules to post a link to it here?

Note I'll post my power usage for my i3 setup (clocked @3.75Ghz) when I get home tonight.

Athlon X4 @ 3.6 (1.45v) + L3 Cache
4Gb DDR3 1333mhz
8800GT (602/900/1728) + Akasa Vortexx Neo
DVDRW
WD Blue 160Gb
3x Xilence Redwings 120mm
1x Sharkoon system 140mm
1x XSPC Dual bay res/pump combo
USB Bluetooth
Wireless Keyboard & Mouse reciever

Folding@home load (inc GPU) 265w
w/out GPU 227w
w/out GPU + CPU folding 122w
w/out GPU + CPU folding (GPU underclocked 400/500/999) 119w

All fans @ around 50%

I'll do some stock CPU readings in a second.

Guzzidom said:

There's always been an utter load of pish talked about PSU's, it certainly makes you wonder what sort of rig would stress one of those 1000w supplies, even 70% of the way.

Click to expand...

I would not want my psu running at 70% capacity.. considering the price difference of a 500 / 700 w psu and how much you would have spent to get a machine thats going to use that much power.

Gigabyte GA-H55M-UD2H
Intel i3 @ 3.75Ghz @ 1.136v
x2 2Gb OCZ Gold DDR3 @ 1.5v
ATI 4850 Pro
Samsung F3 500Gb Hard Drive
Intel X25-M 80Gb
LG DVDRW
Corsair HX520 Power Supply
x3 80mm case fans

Idle 89W
2d Load with Prime95 130w
3d Load playing BFBC2 187w (peak 201w)

Corasik said:

In normal use plasma uses only a tiny bit more power than an LCD TV, be it a standard cold cathode LCD, or even the newer LED/LCD panels. As LCD TV's use more or less the same power for a full white bright screen, as they do for a fully black screen. (Yes with dynamic backlighting the LCD does some of the same tricks as the plasma, with varying power usage. But the LCD panel itself uses a fair chunk of power).

Click to expand...

Pffffft, my sharp LED 52" in the living room draws around 100 watts. The auto power save mode (doesn't effect image quality unless you're using the contrast enchancer) is pretty crazy on it 0_o

Abit X38 chipset
Q6600 3.4 1.41v
2x2gb
Reference 5850 stock.
1 HDD (no optical etc)

119W Idle. 285W running Haven benchmark + 3 threads prime95.


Intel branded G31 mobo
E5200 @3ghz
2x1gb
Onboard gfx.
1HDD (no optical etc)

45W idle. Seen it get up to 75W in old 3D games. iirc about that on Prime95.

i7 4.2,2xgtx480 sli 825/1950,4 hardrives,950w enermax revo...idle 280w/mw2 800w/furmark 1000w