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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?
i guess it's a good thing that my electric is included in my rent...
What's the matter, James? No glib remark? No pithy comeback?
But look at the specs!
I EWPROD&ProdID=98:
From http://www.extechstore.com/index.asp?PageAction=V
Four simultaneous LCD display of Watts, Power Factor or VA, Voltage or Hz, Amps - FOUR!!! LCD!! Come on.
True RMS Voltage and current measurements of sine, square, triangular and distorted wave forms with a crest factor 5 - Richard M Stallman voltage!! Sine waves!
Plug device to be tested directly into the Power Analyzer - It plugs in to something, thats gotta be cool.
Built in Datalogger stores up to 1,012 readings. Choice of single record storage or continuous datalogging - Configurable options, sweet.
Choice of battery or AC/DC adaptor power provides line isolation - isolation something all geeks cherish
Max Recall, Data Hold, Overload Protection - Max anything is always cool. Overlord prote^H, ok well can't have it all.
Sampling (update) rate is 2.5 times per second - 2.5 times per second, thats gotta be a lot of BOGOMIPS
Windows® based software allows user to download stored data or save data directly, and to create an ASCII file. - Windows software just begging to be compiled into a kernel loaded into a router
Computations include phase angle, apparent and reactive power, consumption and cost, and power factor correction - Reactive power, whatever it is, has got to be hardcore badass to the extreme.
Power meters not cool, turn your badge in at the door!
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
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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'd invent a computer powered off a geek. Solve half of the obesity problem pretty damn quickly.
EpiAdv - if you like Pokey the Penguin, try this comic!
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.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I switched to an electricity supplier who could guarantee that at least 74.5% of their supplies come from nuclear plants: http://www.edf.fr/
"The way we can tell it's C# instead of Haskell is because it's nine lines instead of two." -- wadler
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