AMD power use between idle and load?

[Dutch Guy]

We received a big electricity bill a few weeks ago where we had to pay €700 extra and with the high electricity price today (€0.19 a kWh) I am looking for ways to reduce power use.

The computer is on 24/7 and up until recently was running Seti@home all the time.

But does anyone know the difference in power use between idle and 100% load on a AMD X-2 3800+ @ 2500Mhz, 1.59V without using Cool&Quiet????

 

[Dutch Guy]

Don't know if that is the cpu wattage, but the difference between idle and load should be what u looking for

So the difference between idle and load is ~70W which is less than I was expecting and that is only €10 a month.

Sounds more like someone has connected themselves to your supply for "free" electric and you are getting the bill for it.

Unfortunately as we moved to a bigger house it turned out our estimate was way too low, the usage for a year was 7070kWh which is high but we do use ~18kWh each day.

 

[Dutch Guy]

I can't use C&Q as the CPU is overclocked as I play games and do video edting etc. in the evening.

During the day the computer is used for e-mailing, browsing, downloading, playing MP3's by my girlfriend so it would be an annoyance if the machine has to be turned off and on everytime she wants to do something.

I have been running my computer 24/7 for a couple of years now so it's not that the power use has to be cut significantly.

I have stopped Seti as I was already thinking about stopping anyway and the electricity bill helped me make the choice.

I just did not know what the difference between idle and load was.

Maybe the best thing to do is find a store that sells a Watt meter so I can measure the usage in detail

 

[Dutch Guy]

Have you tried using RM Clock utility to change your multipliers and voltage from windows? It's got a nice performance on demand feature for everyday use and you can choose maximum performance for when you're playing games.

Very good tip, I will download and try it ASAP which will be tomorrow evening as I am going to Ajax tonight.

 

[Dutch Guy]

It was too good to be true, to run at 2.5Ghz I need to adjust the VCore in the BIOS to 1.59V and by doing that RM Clock can't change the VCore in Windows

 

[Dutch Guy]

you could buy an energy meter www.westfalia.net search for energy meter also avaliable on eBay

I did just that, I found a local site that sells a power/energy meter, so that will give me a clear idea of the difference in power use.

 

[Dutch Guy]

Once again thanks very much for the link to RM Clock.

It is now running at 4x250Mhz @ 1.24V or 10x250Mhz @ 1.58V, I managed to get the VCore changes working by selecting AUTO in the BIOS and my DFI mobo has a special VID setting that allows 113% Vcore.