For those that are interested in power effeciency..

dannyboyee82 · 17 Dec 2009 at 14:50

..I got a new toy from British Gas the other week, an electricity monitor. I have finally got round to running some tests.

My rig:

ASUS Maximus III
i7 860
4gb G-Skill Ripjaw
XFX 5850

When all settings are at stock: Idle = 0.28-0.30kwh (2p per hour)
Full Load = 0.60-0.70kwh (6p per hour)

When overclocked to 4.01GHz: Idle = 0.47-0.50kwh (4p per hour)
Full Load = 0.81-0.86kwh (7p per hour)

Hopefully somebody will find this somewhat interesting, and moderators: feel free to move it to an appropriate area of the forum as I wasn't sure where to put it.

Ducky Spud · 17 Dec 2009 at 15:19

I was using one too a few weeks back, quite intresting to see the changes overclocking can make. Found it quite cheap running the PC though, thought it would be costing more.

I found it fun seeing how high I could get the number... complete opposite of what its intended for lol. Washing machine, dryer, kettle and iron all on at once, costs a fortune haha. Means its financially beneficial to mess on the PC rather than do the washing/ironing

shadowscotland · 17 Dec 2009 at 15:48

is that cpu load or cpu & gpu.
and was the gpu oc'ed for the second set of results.

300w at idle is very high (so much for power saving) but I guess it's the 5850.
but the extra power used for the oc is 25w per core - so I guess that about right

upping my E6600 from stock to 3.4 added 48w (0.04kwh) to my total load 96w to 144w (1.375v)
upping my E8200 from stock to 3.2 reduced my load from 148w to 126w (droped the Vcore to 1.1v)
These are full system numbers (but only had a 9500gt at the time)
looks like the power usage when oc'ed is more conroe spec than wolfdale

Edit: but I guess there is an OC sweet spot at stock or sub stock volts

Corasik · 17 Dec 2009 at 18:08

300w idle is absolutely aweful for idle power usage, I recently put an i7 860 rig together with 4gb ram, and a Geforce 275GTX, and it was 68W idle!, and a little over 250W with all 4 cores, and the GPU working hard.

BTW, you should measure appliances in watts, not KWh

For what its worth, with my two normal PC's playing wow, plus two 24inch widescreens, and speaker systems for both computers, my SkyHD box (which uses around 40-50W depending what its doing) and a few misc things on standby, I get a total house load of around 650W. Of course add some lights and bathroom towel rail, and its 1KW or so :/

Seriously if your PC is using 700W with stock speeds and an i7! processor, then your gpu must be an absolute power hungry monster!.

Firing squad did a power test on a rig with a 5850 and got 79W idle and 208W load, and that was with an i7-975

Mebee your 0.3kw includes the rest of your household gadgets on standby, plus lighting and a few other bits and bobs..... Either that or the energy meter is bogus. At stock, the difference between idle and load should be no more than 150W or so for your setup, and absolutely not 400w difference!

Dont mean to get at you.. just pointing out something is wrong, either with the PC or with the measurement.

kerrgreg · 17 Dec 2009 at 18:24

I ran my i7 below on 1 of these max load with intelburn and 3dmark was 525 but idle was 90-120w which was the same as my old e8400 @4.2 n 4890 and is slighty less than my housemates q9450 4870 clocked @ 3.4

Was quiet suprised how low it was on idle since i7 isn't the most efficient power wise

Corasik · 17 Dec 2009 at 20:06

kerrgreg said:
Was quiet suprised how low it was on idle since i7 isn't the most efficient power wise

Isnt i7 better efficiency than a Core 2 Quad, because it can speedstep to considerably lower clocks at idle, and it can completely shut down unused cores to futher reduce power requirements. Sure i7 uses a little more power at full load, but its a faster processor, overall its rather efficient, especially the lynnfield i5/i7's like the 860.

dannyboyee82 · 18 Dec 2009 at 12:30

I just checked again today after your comments, seems that the power usage today is only 140W.. that is including my TV, DVD player and cable box on stand by with my modem and router switched on. Everything else in the house is turned off. When I tested it yesterday I turned everything off, including the stuff I just mentioned apart from my rig. What is going on?!

I read a book a while ago about a guy that hid in somebody's basement, using their electricity he hooked up light bulbs all over the ceiling and walls..

is that cpu load or cpu & gpu.
and was the gpu oc'ed for the second set of results.

When I tested it on full load I was running Furmark and P95.. so GPU and CPU. No, the GPU isn't overclocked. But it seems the test was useless anyway! I can't be bothered to do it again!