top end pc's.....power usage....suprising

james.miller · 31 May 2007 at 20:37

ok so i had the opportunity to play with a device use to measure current draw at the mains. i only had 10 minutes or so to play so nothing in depth (yet) but it was an interesting 10 minutes.

My specs are listed at the bottom of this post. now considering the device was plugged in between the wall socket and the 4-way strip that powers my pc, my 22" dell tft, my router and my modem, what do you guys think the gear is drawing from the mains whilst running superpi on one core and 3dmark on the other?

ill tell you in 30 minutes or so.

my specs:

e6600 @3.2ghz
2ghz ddrII
8800gtx @ stock
7300gt
xfi gamer
two 18x dvd writers
360 hd-dvd drive
two 500gb hdd's, one 250gb
imon ultrabay vfd
all-in-one card reader
corsair HX 620w psu

Jokester · 31 May 2007 at 20:38

250-300W.

Jokester

Alex UK · 31 May 2007 at 20:43

400W?

Jaffa_Cake · 31 May 2007 at 20:44

350W

*sits safe in the middle*

Troop · 31 May 2007 at 20:48

217 W

.

Raikiri · 31 May 2007 at 20:51

gt_junkie · 31 May 2007 at 20:51

65.4 watts!

v

v

v

v

Only kidding...

380 watts?

I've had a similar machine to you so would be interested in this.

gt

Sparky · 31 May 2007 at 20:52

***I was way out"""

Tee Hee Johnson · 31 May 2007 at 20:52

id say about... 380?

truebluecfc · 31 May 2007 at 20:54

sidefxv1 · 31 May 2007 at 20:54

semi-pro waster · 31 May 2007 at 20:56

Just to pick a number that hasn't been used yet - 320w although I think it may be even lower and more in line with Jokesters predictions.

PhillyDee · 31 May 2007 at 20:58

im gonna guess at 175W For the rig only. So im gonna go with about 320W full load.

My whole rig as per spec, + speakers, 20.1" tft, modem, router, and cordless phone pulls 280W. Thats idleish though.

Sukh · 31 May 2007 at 21:11

400W ?

calnen · 31 May 2007 at 21:13

Say 80W for the monitor and 350 for the PC, so I reckon 430

james.miller · 31 May 2007 at 21:15

ok well its been half an hour.. i was expecting more replies but maybe people are worried they'd get it wrong

anyway with the tester plugged in i booted up the pc and straight away we saw a 1.2amp load. 288watts, in other words. that's a fair amount considering it wasn't doing very much and did suprise me some what, but booting in to vista saw a 1.3amp peak (312watts) as the optical drives span up and it did its thing which wasnt a huge increase.

as I ran superpi on one core and 3dmark's nature tests on the other, the maximum peak was 1.6amps, 384 watts. that's it, thats all it could muster lol. This is only a short test but if nothing else it does prove that recommended ratings and 90% of what people will tell you you *need* on a hardware forum.....is complete tosh.

so what do you think then? and well done gt_junkie and Craig_kennedy83 for guessing virtually on the button

Bloodust · 31 May 2007 at 21:15

I have to say, ~80 watts idle and ~500w in action!

*EDIT*

God damn, I was too late

calnen · 31 May 2007 at 21:19

edit - ignore, I missed the bit about 3dmark

james.miller · 31 May 2007 at 21:20

i was running superpi AND 3dmark at the same time

Jokester · 31 May 2007 at 21:23

Can you do it again, with only measuring the actual current used by the PC PSU?

Jokester