Downclocking or disabling cores to save power

pinkpotato

pinkpotato

pinkpotato

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Hi, Basically i was to make a bios profile which i can use to save power so when i leave my computer all night downloading off of steam or patches etc. Thought about it after i downloaded the halflife 2 fake factory mod and my computer was buzzing away all night.

I didnt know what would be more effective, should i keep all 4 cores enabled and lower the speed and vcore or should i disable cores to say run only 2 cores? Or both...

Also can i damage my cpu when only 2 cores are enabled? I remember reading something about disabling cores on 980x's can damage them does this apply to i7 930's?
 
You might get better results with your graphics cards. Not sure about Xfire or 6870s but when my card has a second monitor enabled then it clocks up from 250/150 to 450/1250 which adds an extra 40W to the power draw. If you use Ultramon you can disable additional monitors quite simply. The graphics card will suck the extra power whether the monitor is switched on or not.

CPUs only use a few amps of power at idle to even dropping the core by 0.6v will only make a small difference. I looked at my current draw, according to Everest, and it says it's pulling 6 Amps at idle.

Disabling hard drives could save you a few watts, even considering you are using Greens. Edit: Just noticed you have them in Raid0 so not much you can do there.

Downclocking Blck will save a few watts too.

It all adds up.
 
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pinkpotato said:
actually theres no point, just downclocked from 4.4 @1.35v to [email protected] and from the wall i was drawing 270w @4.4 and now im drawing [email protected] so its not really worth it lol
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So you'd leave a 60W light turned on and not think turning it off was worthwhile? Every little helps and if you turn off or down power everything you can the cumulative effect will register on your bills!
 
60w an hour is about £105 a year I think.

I presume changes that big require a reboot, would be nice if it were active or automatic. I know some utils try this but tends to jar with overclocking I think
 
Dont these CPUs clock down when idle anyway? Or do you have to disable that for OCing?

My x6 idles at 800MHz I think.
 
silversurfer said:
60w an hour is about £105 a year I think.

I presume changes that big require a reboot, would be nice if it were active or automatic. I know some utils try this but tends to jar with overclocking I think
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Yep that's about right could be more, depends what rate your paying for your leccy.

@22.5p per KW/h a 60W of leccy used for 24 hours a day, 365 days would cost £118.26p for the year
 
I think the costs per KW/h are a little high. Are the averages not closer to 12p per KW/h?

I'm all for saving energy but I think there are better ways to do it - eg switching off peripheral devices of shutting down the PC once things are done, rather than disabling cores and undervolting.
 
Krislord said:
I think the costs per KW/h are a little high. Are the averages not closer to 12p per KW/h?

.
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Depends on how much you use.
Most companies have two prices, the first being higher per unit. Then it changes to the lower price when you've used X amount of units at the higher price.
 
Mick-1965 said:
Depends on how much you use.
Most companies have two prices, the first being higher per unit. Then it changes to the lower price when you've used X amount of units at the higher price.
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Yeah, i think that tends to be once you've spent about £20 per month. Assuming the OP spends more than this, then the savings need to be calculated at the cheaper unit cost.
 
Krislord said:
Yeah, i think that tends to be once you've spent about £20 per month. Assuming the OP spends more than this, then the savings need to be calculated at the cheaper unit cost.
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If you are sure about that,then @12.5p per KW/h then using 60W of leccy 24 hours a day for a year would cost £65.70

Still a lot of beer vouchers thrown away :)
 
Mick-1965 said:
If you are sure about that,then @12.5p per KW/h then using 60W of leccy 24 hours a day for a year would cost £65.70

Still a lot of beer vouchers thrown away :)
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Approx 78 bottles of Staropramen by my calculations, so lots of beer :)

2 more questions:

the OP saves 60watts going from 4.4 to 1.6 (speed step) or 78 beers....

how much can be saved disabling the cores, and can the i7 not do this using its own power saving functionality?
 
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