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Power Consumption and the Modern Geek
mikemuch writes "ExtremeTech's Loyd Case got his hands on an Extech model 380083 power meter and decided to find out exactly how many watts today's geek equipment uses. He compares AMD vs. Intel processors, Nvidia vs. ATI graphics cards, and even checks out what a cranked up audio system draws -- it's a lot more than a PC."
Cheap Power meter: P3 International's P4400. Everyone who has more than 4 computers on at the same time should have one. LOL. Less than $30.
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Before, Saddam got Iraq oil profits & paid part to kill Iraqis. Now a few Americans share Iraq oil profits, & U.S. citizens pay to kill Iraqis. Improvement?
From TFA:
;-).
The way Cool'n'Quiet works is that it reduces the multiplier when at idle or reduced load. So the clock speed effectively goes down, which means the CPU draws less current. But it also means that we couldn't overclock. On our ASUS A8N32-SLI motherboard, enabling Cool'n'Quiet disables the ability to overclock.
Maybe they changed it on the A8N32-SLI, but that's not how it works on the A8N-SLI Premium. My X2 3800+ is OC'd by 15%, running 1150MHz in CnQ mode and 2300MHz at full speed. What you can't do is change the core voltage from its default settings with CnQ enabled, so forget about OC'ing a 3800+ to FX60 levels. Since AMD is very conservative with their default voltage settings you have some room to play with if you have proper cooling.
CnQ on desktop CPUs normally runs the processor at 1GHz at 1.1V core while idle and full speed at a higher core voltage under load. In practice this makes a fairly minor difference, but for a machine that runs 24x7 every little bit helps.
Notebook CPUs use 800MHz at an even lower core voltage (usually 0.95V or 1V) as their low-power setting, which makes CnQ significantly more effective than in desktops. You definitely want to keep power management enabled in notebooks.
Core voltage has a much greater effect on power consumption than clockspeed, which is why undervolting is so popular.
You'll want to buy AMD over Intel regardless
If you're not an industrial electricty user you don't have to worry about reactive power. It doesn't exist and is literally imaginary. If you have a perfect inductor or capacitor with an ac voltage across it, there will be a current flow. There will, however, be no energy used. Half the time the inductor or capacitor takes in energy and half the time it gives it back. The important thing is that a proper wattmeter does not register reactive power so it isn't billed for. The problem for the electric company is that there is still a current flow. That means there are line losses. So the electric company is providing a lot of current that it can't bill for and is losing energy in the supply lines. The result is that for industrial users, the reactive power is measured or calculated and the ratio between the real power and the reactive power (called the power factor) is calculated or measured. The result is an adjustment to the customers bill (upward). Normally the customer's load consists of large motors which act like inductors. To compensate for this, it is common to put capacitors across the line. That, in a perfect world, reduces the reactive power to zero and the customer has to pay for just the real power. ie. there is no adjustment for power factor.
:-)
There; more than you wanted to know.
They can't guarantee that. All they can guarantee is, that the similar amount of electricity that you use is made with renewable energy sources. Somewhere, some day. And someone uses it with some luck. The electricity network usually in most of the places on earth combines it all at the core network level. You can't distinguish the energy produced by any means from the other. Most likely you are using electricity made by burning fossil fuels and roasting some uranium just like everyone else.
You can't really substitute a current meter for a power meter. If the load of your device is not purely resistive, the currrent it draws is out of phase with the voltage and the power will be less than you would calculate by VxA. The ratio of power to volts-times-amps is called the "power factor," and that's one of the items this device can display.
"But all your emitter and collector are belong to me!"
More info: P3's web page. The only model is for 115 volts.
Interesting company: One of the products is a Voice Changer.
Not as fancy as the one in the review, but how about this? Its got a UK plug/socket but should be fine for use in FR (from the specs on that page it should work with 240v 50/60hz but not 120v).
I have one, seems to do the job!
Paul