Do you have this setup/what's your power usage?

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Basically I'm again considering a rig after getting stressed previously with the energy prices of building a silly spec brand new high end one...

I'm thinking all secondhand parts on a budget so 3600x, rx6600, 550w psu, 16gb ram, single m.2, b550m, use my 144hz 1080p 27" aoc and undervolt everything as much as possible and framecap to 60fps for SP and unlock if I bother playing cs:go etc online.

What is your actual per hour usage of the rig with a monitor with or without speakers on - as I'm happy to use earphones...

From what I've red the rx6600 uses 95w peak and the 3600x around 40-60w in most games maxed 1080p epesh in 60-100fps?

It'd be nice if I could get the whole setup to be 200w all in an hour at 60fps SP? That's the same as a ps3 phat running at around 6p an hour using the same monitor/speakers/amp so I'd be happy with that for a pc setup as I've recently measured the power usage/costs of my old games consoles so know what costs what power draw wise - I however have changed both the ps3/4 to slim variants now so they use around 2-3p each, so just take the ps3 phat merely as an example of what wattage = per hour. So again to have a pc playing newer games running at that sort of usage would be very reasonable bang per buck :)

Any input would be greatly appreciated :)
 
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Surely even if you spend "just" £1000 on a new PC the cost of electricity pales into insignificance doesn't it? You could have a heck of a lot of PS3 hours for £1000.
it'll be secondhand parts. I now have a ps3 slim that only uses 100w and a ps4 slim that uses 75w, the original ps3 phat usage was merely for comparison as I'm well aware of what they use as an example.
 
This is the key - max power draw like benchmarking isn't the real world usage. In most scenarios you'll find either the CPU, GPU or both are not running at full tilt.
exactly, so this would be ideal and as I'd predicted real world usage wise frame capped. sweet. I can live with 6p'ish and hour with a monitor/earphones/speakers - I think that's a reasonable 1080p mid-high setup that'd do me for what I want, what with console games now starting to require next gen for new releases.
 

Looks like 5600 would be slightly lower power usage and should also be faster than a 3600 so if you find it's faster than you need you could also reign it in a bit by powering power target limits in BIOS (same with graphics - you could probably drop down to still beat performance of the tier below while beating it on power with an undervolt)
that sounds ideal for a bit of future proofing then! nice one! I have a 144hz 27" aoc 1080p monitor and just plan on frame capping at 60fps for SP and if I bother with a bit of cs:go I'll unlock the fps.
 
im under 160w with an OC
are you undervolted as well? what is your current settings/clocks? I was thinking overclock it at say 4 or 4.2ghz and disable PBO and undervolt it and do whatever I can with the rx6600 and then hopefully be close to 160w'ish excluding monitor and speakers - although lol my mac mini with an ssd and a 27" aoc 1080p monitor with a hefty set of speakers/amp only uses 1p an hour so I'm not too worried about that side of things haha!

Also I see you have an xt not an normal 6600... I was under the impression the xt uses more power? is it true I can get away with flashing a 6600 to an xt? would it then consume more power ie xt levels or is the xt a completely different chip hence more draw?
 
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you must undervolt AMD now day, voltage = heat = lower clocks
i have the curve set to negative 30 with +250 on PBO

The xt and none xt Gpu's are not the same, the XT will 100% use more power but not a much as people think and it's around 20% faster.. but again this is all down to load, game setting and OC settings.
My GPU at stock boosts to 2784Mhz that's faster that the card thats supported to be 20% faster then the none XT.
under max load testing my GPU hits 147w in game at 1440 high setting it sits around 114w, thats an extra 14w for 20/30% faster, you can alwasy undervolt and ot adjust power limit
so is that flashing it as an xt just a myth or to make it xt stock clocks? yeah that seems like a lot of wattage for what i want. how is yours 160w with an oc? or is that not gpu+cpu+system?
I heard that the amd cards dont seem to undervolt more than 6% and it makes no difference? watched a video of Dawid doing it to a 6600 and made no difference in fps nor power usage? the 6600 just wanted to stay at 95w no matter what :(
 
you cant flash it. you can OC the none XT but it wont be as fast as a XT.

if you want to game at 144hz 1080p with a 6600 thats very doable but not at max setting.
undervolting doesn't reduce wattage, it reduces voltage and there not the same.

if your GPU needs 95W to run at base clocks under load it will always use 95w ones you drop under that it will black screen.
when you undervolt a GPU its the GPU thats runs cooler becuse there is less voltage been pumped in, but the card(compleat card) still needs 95W to run the ram and so on

you can reduce the power limit, but this will reduce the cards out put(a lot).

When you overclock your limit is heat if a CPU or GPU will throttle at 95c, and your already running at 91c you have no headroom, this is where undervolting comes into play.
on a CPU in bios you can set 80w and the cpu will never pass that limit, a gpu is not the same. you can reduce the power limit by say 6% but that doesn't make a 100w card into a 94w card the GPU will still boost as hard as it can upto said power limit.
if i set me card to cap out at 2000mhz in afterburner it will still boost passed that if there is power spear.

if a PS4 runs at 100w under load, and a PC runs at 200w underload. and the 100w difference in money is a life changing amount for you don't buy a PC. you will never get a PC to run at the same power as a console.
100w for 3hr used thats 3 hr under max load is 15.6p per day.

when you turn on the PC, turn off a light and now your PC runs for free

im not talking down to anyone because im defo not rich, to some people £100 is 4 weeks food to some people thats a cheap meal, genuinely if you cant afford 15p extra a day dont buy a PC. but when buying a PC to game you cant cry over 10/15w hear and there

my pc under load may run at 170w, you get all the same parts and your runs at 140w because you silicon is better than mine.
Ah, so all the things I've seen about flashing it to xt bios are lies and they are actually just running at xt clocks - fair enough.

I just wanted to clarify that as I'm fully aware of the difference so it did seem strange considering its a different chip.

Yeah undervolting is new to me, I used to overclock a lot back in the day but never undervolted, so I'm looking forward to the benefits with modern hardware, as it's been years since I've built a gaming pc.

I can afford it, but I refuse to waste money indefinitely on something that I've already paid for that uses say 5-800w an hour just for gaming vs just buying a console that'd use half that at reasonable settings at the same res on a big tv sat on a sofa.

I prefer to waste my money on carbon fibre, 99 octane and car parts over electric toys at home, but it's all personal preference :)

Regarding the pc I'm just looking for a budget built second hand bit of fun that ideally uses no more than 200w an hour as that's only 6p an hour as previously stated from measuring an original phat ps3/monitor with the smart metre as a point of reference for consumption vs price...

So I'm more than happy with anything upto 200w if it gives me a cheap thrills 1080p at the desk 2nd gaming build experience.
Otherwise I'd rather just buy a ps5 and enjoy my 4k TV lazily in a comfy chair.

But I do enjoy being at the desk and miss messing around with pcs, I tend to use macs these days, so it would be nice to build a 2nd hand budget rig that caters to my needs.
 
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yes that's right, you cant unlock the extra cores/shaders.
it just add's extra power so you can OC more, that's not a bad thing


new can cost less now days, its stupid.
ocuk had the 5600(none x) for sale at £110 they was selling on ebay for £130. there is one in bgrade now that i made an offer of 95 on and it was accepted but i had already got one by the time they said yes.


in many cases right now this is the best option, like not even joking.

the only reason i have a PC and not a console is its not just a gaming toy for me, if i did only game i would have an Xbox
Yeah still a benefit definitely but I'm not too bothered wether the clocks stay stock tbh. I can always have a play in the future as and when required :)

Interesting, I will definitely keep an eye on new and used in that case, I just fancy building something with a good bang per buck as a bit of fun really as this will literally only be used for gaming as I have macs for anything else...

So again this is why I couldn't justify it vs a console if not.

Cheers mate I'm glad someone understands what I'm getting at :)

I just really like the idea of building, fiddling tweaking a budget build eco setup like this and getting myself back behind a desk with a keyboard and monitor again gaming wise!

I love my consoles but I've always liked a bit of both so this would be the best of both worlds without feeling like I need to use it all the time to justify the cost ala if I'd built a 4k brand new beast that ate electric pointlessly vs a new console.
 
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