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Power Consumption and the Modern Geek

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the amping-up-consumption dept.

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."

3 of 76 comments (clear)

  1. If only... by Kittie+Rose · · Score: 3, Interesting

    They'd invent a computer powered off a geek. Solve half of the obesity problem pretty damn quickly.

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    EpiAdv - if you like Pokey the Penguin, try this comic!
  2. I use half the energy i used to use in 1999 by WillAffleckUW · · Score: 3, Interesting

    and it's all renewable too (live in Seattle, purchase green power).

    Some easy ways to reduce power:

    1. use LCD flat screen instead of CRT;

    2. replace lightbulbs with flourescent lightbulbs as they burn out (1/8 energy);

    3. get a good UPS system ($99 or less on TigerDirect) which allows you to turn off power automatically via software, and send shutdown and kill signals to programs that don't need to be on (such as backup servers, monitors, TVs, etc).;

    4. run off of flash RAM USB keychains and such that are low power, and consider using LEDs instead of incandescent lights.

    And now I have many times the processing power, even with less energy usage.

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    -- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
  3. Here's what I did by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Interesting

    Connect a photo-transistor up to a pulse LED-style power meter if you've got one and run a cable back to a parallel port on your Linux box.

    You can then log the power consumption for your entire house including those difficult to tap devices like ovens and HWCs.

    Minor appliances like desk lamps and laptop power supplies do show up, but it would be good to have some bayesean analysis algorithms that attempt to determine the most likely cause of a sudden rise/fall in usage. Something like "spike detected - which of the folling appliances have you just switched on?".

    I've set it up similarly to this guy

    You can see how much power I'm currently (heh) using at http://grt.dyndns.org/powerlog