low powered pcs, are they worth it?

paradisiac

paradisiac

paradisiac

Soldato
Joined
22 Mar 2009
Posts
7,754
Location
Cornwall
ok, so we got one of those energy things from british gas the other day, and it appears my pc uses about 5-8p and hour, which isnt a lot, but when just listening to music or watching a film i think my pc is probably using more than it should.
so, my question is, if i spent say £150-£200 on an atom/fusion system for just media and used my desktop for games, how much would i actually save?
or is there any way to make mine more cost effective whilst its not gaming?
 
stuartw_b said:
If you are anything like myself and the gamers I know you computer is probably going to be on anyway, so no you are unlikely to save money :)
Click to expand...

i only turn the pc on 3-4 times a month for gaming, most of the time its for music or films. never have it on unless i have to coz it pumps out way tooo much heat, good in the winter though :p
 
How long is the computer switched on and how many watts does it use?

Or on average how many hours per day is the computer switched on and how many watts does it consume?
 
Last edited:
most PC's are very good at saving energy in low power states. graphics cards can go to ridiculously low power, as can processors.

if you are really worried about power usage then get yourself an 80+ platinum PSU
 
Before you put money into a new system I would suggest buying a relatively cheap power meter and see what your PC is actually drawing from the wall when under low usage (music listening, internet browsing etc). Since your CPU and GPUs are pretty good for power saving when under low load then it may be using less than you would imagine - but still a fair amount.

If you assume it is using 8p of electricity an hour and you use it 12 hours per week - then over a year it will costs around £50 to run. IMHO, this isn't enough of a saving to sink £150-200 in a new low-power (and relatively low-speed) system.
 
cmndr_andi said:
Before you put money into a new system I would suggest buying a relatively cheap power meter and see what your PC is actually drawing from the wall when under low usage (music listening, internet browsing etc). Since your CPU and GPUs are pretty good for power saving when under low load then it may be using less than you would imagine - but still a fair amount.

If you assume it is using 8p of electricity an hour and you use it 12 hours per week - then over a year it will costs around £50 to run. IMHO, this isn't enough of a saving to sink £150-200 in a new low-power (and relatively low-speed) system.
Click to expand...

we got the meter from british gas, which does tell you, i just dont have the pc on at the mo so dont know the figures, but it was around the 8p an hour.
but the last part is exactly what i was thinking, it would take nearly 4 years before i started making a saving, so are they actually worth it? i dont have an excessivly power hungry pc, but its by no means a low power one, so is there actually a need to go for low powered pcs over a decent spec one?
 
paradisiac said:
i dont have an excessivly power hungry pc, but its by no means a low power one, so is there actually a need to go for low powered pcs over a decent spec one?
Click to expand...

If you have the need for a high-end system then I wouldn't suggest buying a low power one as well just to save power, since the sums just don't add up.

However, if you are going to use it for something else to add value (HTPC or file sever for example) as well as a second PC for when you just want to do low power-stuff, then a £150-200 low power PC is worth considering imho.

If you don't need a high-end system (tbh the majority of the population) then a low-power AMD fusion system with an SSD, win 7 and 4GB of RAM is more than sufficient in terms of performance - and has the benefit of being quiet, cool and cheap to run. However, this doesn't apply to you since you game.
 
Not sure where you get 8p an hour from as that would be around 700w and it's doubtful your system draws anywhere near that, even at load. Edit: just noticed you said 5-8p an hour, but still that's 450w or so at idle --way too high for your sig rig.

If your PC is not idling at less than 200w (about 3p an hour) then you should look into that as there's no reason why your CPU can't slow itself down at idle along with your GPUs. My PC used to clock in at 220w but with some pruning I got it down to 155w idle but that was with a 48xx series card, now with a 6950 it's down to 135w (2p an hour).

A low power system is not generally cost effective in the short term.

Let's assume a low power PC uses 50w at the wall vs a 150w rig. The 100w differential amounts to about 20p if left on all day. So in 3 years your £200 low power PC begins to recoup it's investment. Obviously more if you don't use it 24/7.
 
Tealc said:
Not sure where you get 8p an hour from as that would be around 700w and it's doubtful your system draws anywhere near that, even at load. Edit: just noticed you said 5-8p an hour, but still that's 450w or so at idle --way too high for your sig rig.

If your PC is not idling at less than 200w (about 3p an hour) then you should look into that as there's no reason why your CPU can't slow itself down at idle along with your GPUs. My PC used to clock in at 220w but with some pruning I got it down to 155w idle but that was with a 48xx series card, now with a 6950 it's down to 135w (2p an hour).

A low power system is not generally cost effective in the short term.

Let's assume a low power PC uses 50w at the wall vs a 150w rig. The 100w differential amounts to about 20p if left on all day. So in 3 years your £200 low power PC begins to recoup it's investment. Obviously more if you don't use it 24/7.
Click to expand...

i did think it was a tad high, but thats what the british gas energy saver thing is quoting so its all i can go on. so, have i disabled or not turned on some power saving features somewhere?

EDIT : my bad, forgot to take into account the tv takes about 150-200w of that, so its probs only 200-300w for the tower :cool: looked in bios and nothing obvious for powersaving, its set to cool and quiet and thermal throttling but other than that i couldnt see anything for cpu :(
 
Last edited:
If your CPU is downclocking then that's really all you can do. My Intel CPU dynamically downclocks the multiplier from 21 down to 12 at idle. I can also modify the bus speed (BLCK) but that leaves my system a little instable and not worth the 3 watts it saves.

Next look at your GPUs. Try to make sure that both clock down to idle clocks rather than multiple monitor clocks. On my 6950 if I have dual monitors in use but the TV is switched off or not in use I still waste 40W of energy. I now use Ultramon to control my monitors, switch and turn off as needed. Not sure how things work with dual monitors on a dual card setup though but you'd expect that card 1 could power monitor 1 and card 2 could power monitor 2 and use low energy at idle.

And yes big TVs do draw a fair bit of power.
 
Would a stand alone media player such as an AC Ryan or WD (take your pick, so many out now) for just media use less power (presuming your media is on a usb drive or NAS so it can be accessed when the PC is off)?
 
spending 150-200 to save £30 ish a year isn't worth it.
Why not just have two OC profiles - a oc'ed CF gaming one and a underclocked single gpu day-to-day one.
even consider removing the second HD6850 when not gaming (as it's just eating juice)
but I accept that's more hassle.
 
paradisiac said:
ok, so we got one of those energy things from british gas the other day, and it appears my pc uses about 5-8p and hour, which isnt a lot, but when just listening to music or watching a film i think my pc is probably using more than it should.
so, my question is, if i spent say £150-£200 on an atom/fusion system for just media and used my desktop for games, how much would i actually save?
or is there any way to make mine more cost effective whilst its not gaming?
Click to expand...

So say a low power PC costs 3p an hour. It would take 4000 hours of constant use (166 days of constant use) to pay for itself assuming that you pay £200 for it and that your current pc uses 8p per hour.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom