power usage reviews of a few computer processors

System

very useful info if youre considerting a new PC and are concerned about power use. pretty detailed 8 pages

http://www.silentpcreview.com/article313-page1.html

System2

Re: power usage reviews of a few computer processors

Really informative. They did their homework 8-)


brad

System2

Re: power usage reviews of a few computer processors

yea, was it you bought the mobile amd? i am disapointed that my amd64 3000 (featured in that article) uses a lot of power even though it has the "power now" technology. according to the article theyve gotten better at it. i can lower the speed alot in the bios as described earlier but then its slower. its ok though. what i want to see is processors that do what linux calls stepping (i dont kow if that term is universal) : but where when the cpu is idle its mhz (speed) and power usage drops . as you know, THATS where alot of the power saving comes in.

my web server systems run mini-itx with VIA integrated chips, they do this stepping really well but would be a bit too slow for "work".


for anybody non techy just look at the power ratings in the article (its a few pages in) and when loking for your new machine find one with that processor.

System2

Re: power usage reviews of a few computer processors


Nope i haven't bought an amd, but i have owned them before and
wasn't ever disappointed. I never was one to "chase the chip" heck
i still have my old 8088 /w the 20 meg hard drive around here some
where. My old usr courier had a 80186 chip in it and was faster than my
xt On a serious note though i believe that if you had some sort of
way of keeping the chip cooler that definitely lower electrical consumption.

brad

niel

Re: power usage reviews of a few computer processors

actually the heat is a large part of the power dissipation as heat can be displayed in btus and watts. i used to have a 1ghz athlon thunderbird, but in my upgrade i went to intel with .13um 2.8ghz p4 with an 875 mb. the intel does put out some heat and i am undercooling the processor with its stock intel fan and heatsink in moderate duty as i see the temp rising fast. i hardly ever even cleaned the heatsink on the amd, but this one i have to clean or risk a premature death. i am leaving the side of the case open too so as to cool the cpu better and it still can overheat in moderate usage. i may have to buy one of the killawatt meters and see how this thing is pulling power. are those things mail order only or do some chain stores sell them?

BB.

Re: power usage reviews of a few computer processors

Amazon has one for $34.00 .... Free shipping / no sales tax...

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00009MDBU/102-7475809-2472167

A few months ago, Amazon had it down to $29 or $30 ...

-Bill

System2

Re: power usage reviews of a few computer processors

Neil: the place selling the switched powerstip sells em for $30
onea my local places sells em about same price and it benefoits a local conservation org
through the link on this page:http://www.cetonline.org/

yea well thats the thing: new cpus are faster and hotter, going with slower/older stuff is often satisfactory and saves power. i'm not a chip chaser either (cant afford to) but when i buy io like to go moderately fast w/current stuff.
the webserver (solar lamplight) is a VIA processor and is fanless.it's pretty cool the whole thing is silent except hardrive noise (it uses one of those 12v dc power supplies so discussed recently)

i have taken some risks on some older stuff that has a fan and i take them out to save power. a new highspeed wouldnt accept that for long. i am setting up a linux server, its a older p3, it runs linux surprisingly fast and on only 256mb ram (though i did order more, my theory is more ram = less hardrive access = less power used). the cpu runs cool enough without the fans so i unplugged them. just a matter if seeing if its gonna crash with an older one like this. new things would melt like you say. i have a intel p4 it shuts off in 4 secs w/no cpu fan due to overheating, at least it doesnt self destruct. :roll:

Brock

Re: power usage reviews of a few computer processors

Matt did you see the article in home power? Someone asked a question about powering a computer straight from 12v to my surprise Home Power suggested using a good sine wave inverter and never mentioned 12v power supplies. I believe the person wanted to run a PC in an RV or something like that.

I also am not a chip chaser, I do however tend to buy one or two below the top of the line and then keep them for about 5 years (then rotate them to kids). I tend to skimp (or go stock) on the ram and HD and upgrade them later. I am still on a 2 gig, but added a 320 gig HD to the original 80 gig and 1 gig of ram in (upgraded from 256 original) it as I have gone. I do a lot of video editing and tend to never delete anything.

niel

Re: power usage reviews of a few computer processors

thanks for the places to buy guys, but i'd prefer to be able to buy locally first and if not available i'll consider mailorder. there's not a big big rush on this quite yet so if you get more leads with good prices i'd appreciate it.
btw matt, why don't you write hp mag and see if they'd be interested in you writing an article for them as it seems you are further advanced in this aspect of the solar field then they are.

brock,
i upgraded mine with video in mind as i'd like to feed video from a security camera to be recorded via the pc. i went with 1 ghz on the ram as well, but my hd is only 40gig with it half filled with other stuff so i may need another supplemental drive. my video card is an msi geforce fx5700 vtd 256. this has the ability for video in, but i have no idea no how to go about getting it all to record let alone connecting the cam to it. i figure i've got to fix the cpu heating problem too as this would tax the crap out of it and it'll overheat. give me a pm on how your's is going and what programing you use for it's recording.

System2

Re: power usage reviews of a few computer processors

cool.. no havent read it yet. interestingly i spoke with them about doing an article on this and they seemed very interested but then didnt hear anything. getting my webserver down to about 11w really impressed them i suspect the concern is keeping an article mainstream enough to be of interest . also the subject tends to spread out quickly into nonstandard platforms and other side issues as we've been discussing. i think the subject could use its own magazine almost.
i am also looking into experimenting with different wattage regular ac power supplies. i wonder if the efficiancy factor is affected like other things, the more youre at the top end the more efficient? since i need another for a pc here i just ordred this tiny little 140w (regular pc) power supply with a variable speed fan that changes (2) speeds depending on temp threshold.

neil: i bought a video capture card and its actually unused if you wanna buy it cheap: it also will play tv but it has to use software which i dont know is current. for on the cheeap and for lower quality video ny old cheap webcam will work, usb. i got aspare one of those too its ridiculous. the schools having a fundraiser next sat with computer/electronic recycling, im there.

niel

Re: power usage reviews of a few computer processors

matt,
thanks anyway, but this video card should do well with high quality as it is listed as analog video in capable. see it here: http://www.msicomputer.com/product/p_spec.asp?model=FX5700-VTD256&class=vga
it's kind of ironic that i can put this all together in upgrading the pc and yet not know what it is i need to do with it. :?:roll:

System2

Re: power usage reviews of a few computer processors

i just hooked up my old pc that was recently replaced, an amd athlon 2800+ based hp system. with a small 250w regular AC power supply hooked up, a standard hardrive and 1 cdrom in the system, and a cpu fan, the system IDLING was at 175-200w!!!!
i couldnt believe it i thought i might have some defective part, i unplugged everything (hardrive and cdrom) except the motherboard and it was still that high.

wow it really is worth shopping around if you want to conserve power, my new faster system idles at 1/4th that (as this long thread documents)!

sadly most pc components are not designed with power in mind at all, its nice to see this new trend in cpu's.

niel

Re: power usage reviews of a few computer processors

"sadly most pc components are not designed with power in mind at all, its nice to see this new trend in cpu's."
for the laptops that not true as they must be able to run via batteries, but as for desktops they certainly didn't and don't care. i have a 400w supply(generic). large amounts of heat being dissipated is a sign it's sucking some power and mine most certainly is. :-(

System2

Re: power usage reviews of a few computer processors

I rebuilt two of my computers last year with socket 479 motherboards and P4 Mobile 2.0Ghz CPUs. I also went from two smaller harddrives to one larger. The new 2.0Ghz mobile is faster than the old 2.8Ghz P4s and I saved on average 100 watts of power from each PC. That is ~1750kWh per year as these run 24/7. The P4 mobile is great for desktops too!

System2

Re: power usage reviews of a few computer processors

cool, im definitely looking at mobile processors next time. its clear how much less power my amd sempron notebook uses compared to the desktop.

i also recently found out that notebook hard drives can be bought with the SATA interface, the same that most current desktop computers use. I plan to replace my desktop systems drive with a notebook one like this soon.