[SOLVED] How much power do these things use anyway?

[balamindin]

Hi everyone,

Hope you all are keeping well.

I'm planning to build my new rig in 2021 Q1. It'll be a fairly powerful as I'm planning to also use it as my homelab for learning and work along with gaming. Because of the nature of the VMs, it'll need to be on 24/7 (minus the maintenance time).

My current homelab set-up can be entirely virtualised and I've somewhat tested that already. I LOVE the idea of just having one physical machine and everything else virtualised. However, I'm concerned with power consumption and electricity cost.
At the moment, it's okay because most of the hardware on my homelab idle unless they're sifting through huge amount of data (which isn't too often) and most of them are headless.
But I don't know if the power consumption would be different with just one powerful machine running.

• PCpartpicker estimates 626W - would it pull that amount all the time?
• Do idle desktop PCs pull a lot of power? I'm not even sure if it would go idle with several VMs running at any giving time.
• Do any of you have experience with a situation like this? How badly did that affect your electricity bills?

This is the build I have in mind.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 3.7 GHz 12-Core Processor  (£571.51 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC LIQUID FREEZER II 360 56.3 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  (£98.99 @ AWD-IT)
Motherboard: MSI MAG X570 TOMAHAWK WIFI ATX AM4 Motherboard  (£198.57 @ Novatech)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 128 GB (4 x 32 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory  (£487.31 @ Newegg UK)
Storage: Western Digital Blue 2 TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  (£202.09 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 2 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  (£189.99 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon RX 6800 XT 16 GB Video Card
Case: Corsair 500D Premium ATX Mid Tower Case  (£132.95 @ More Computers)
Power Supply: Corsair RM (2019) 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  (£125.39 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Monitor: ViewSonic VX2758-2KP-MHD 27.0" 2560x1440 144 Hz Monitor  (£395.84 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £2402.64
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-12-01 13:08 GMT+0000

Thank you.

 

[Deleted member 14196]

it should not pull max wattage all the time, it depends on usage. You can get a "Kill A Watt" device that you plug computer into and see what it is using at idle then do load tests and watch it climb.

Any reason you NEED to run 24/7? Anyway, I think you will be ok. Nice build, but I would go with Samsung or Crucial for the Nvme. Don't like adata at all.

 

[USAFRet]

It does not pull that 626W all the time.
My system (parts below in my sig) idles at around 80 watts. And that is with 1 or 2 VM's running constantly.

80 watts, running 24/7, at a typical US electricity price of $0.12/kWh = $85/year, $7/month.
https://www.rapidtables.com/calc/electric/electricity-calculator.html

 

[balamindin]

it should not pull max wattage all the time, it depends on usage. You can get a "Kill A Watt" device that you plug computer into and see what it is using at idle then do load tests and watch it climb.

Any reason you NEED to run 24/7? Anyway, I think you will be ok. Nice build, but I would go with Samsung or Crucial for the Nvme. Don't like adata at all.

Did not know about "Kill A Watt". I'm totally getting it!
About adata, I think I was just being cheap lol. But yeah, I'll get a better one, it'll be for the VMs. Thanks.

Well, I'll be running a NIDS, HIDS server (I like to compare the results), pi-hole, vulnerability scanner, media server and a couple of other NFV devices in their own VMs. Not all of them need to be on 24/7 but IDS's definitely need to..hence why the PC will need to stay on.
Tbh, if it weren't for gaming, I'd have put on a CentOS or Ubuntu and call it a day but alas, gaming on Linux is still a little too rough.

 

[balamindin]

It does not pull that 626W all the time.
My system (parts below in my sig) idles at around 80 watts. And that is with 1 or 2 VM's running constantly.

80 watts, running 24/7, at a typical US electricity price of $0.12/kWh = $85/year, $7/month.
https://www.rapidtables.com/calc/electric/electricity-calculator.html

That's good to know because my current set up is similar to yours..so power consumption might be, too. Defo getting a 'kill a watt' to see what's what (lol).
Sounds like you've got a good deal with your electricity 👍

 

[Deleted member 14196]

see the answer above you. You should be ok.

 

[USAFRet]

And at the other end of the power consumption scale, my new Beelink GTR Pro (HTPC, primarily) consumes about 10W at idle, about 27-30 under load.
Leaving that running 24/7 is about $11-15/year.

https://www.tomshardware.com/news/beelink-gt-r-pro-is-a-port-heavy-amd-ryzen-mini-pc-in-blue

 

[DSzymborski]

That's good to know because my current set up is similar to yours..so power consumption might be, too. Defo getting a 'kill a watt' to see what's what (lol).
Sounds like you've got a good deal with your electricity 👍

Yeah, the math changes considerably from country-to-country. My cousin near Bremen pays the equivalent of 40 US cents per kWh for his electricity. My rate last month was 11 cents per kWh. I'll never see real power savings going from, say, a Gold-rated to a Platinum-rated PSU, but he absolutely would!

 

[balamindin]

Yeah, the math changes considerably from country-to-country. My cousin near Bremen pays the equivalent of 40 US cents per kWh for his electricity. My rate last month was 11 cents per kWh. I'll never see real power savings going from, say, a Gold-rated to a Platinum-rated PSU, but he absolutely would!

£0.14/kWh for me.
I hate having to factor in trivial <stuff> like this. Trying to do something fun and cool....and this is what pops up -- bloody electricity costs.

I often browse the PSU tier list but did not know the meaning of the PSU ratings till now. TIL!

 

[balamindin]

Okay, I've got some data now and would like to share in case anyone is interested.
I have a kill-a-watt plug and been monitoring my PC's power usage for a couple of weeks now.

At idle, its 57.8 watts.
But when I changed (in Nvidia Control Panel) Power management mode -> Optimal power to Prefer maximum performance, it idles at 117 watts.
So, I switched it back to Optimal power. It doesn't affect the gaming performance anyway.

As I'm typing this, I'm running Firefox with two tabs, Thunderbird and Spotify in the background; it's using 60 - 65 watts.

When I'm gaming (Fallout 4), it draws 215 - 250 watts.

Overall, power usage hasn't been bad at all. In two weeks' time, I'll see how much it costs me for a month (at least in estimates anyway).

 

[Flayed]

Hi everyone,

Hope you all are keeping well.

I'm planning to build my new rig in 2021 Q1. It'll be a fairly powerful as I'm planning to also use it as my homelab for learning and work along with gaming. Because of the nature of the VMs, it'll need to be on 24/7 (minus the maintenance time).

My current homelab set-up can be entirely virtualised and I've somewhat tested that already. I LOVE the idea of just having one physical machine and everything else virtualised. However, I'm concerned with power consumption and electricity cost.
At the moment, it's okay because most of the hardware on my homelab idle unless they're sifting through huge amount of data (which isn't too often) and most of them are headless.
But I don't know if the power consumption would be different with just one powerful machine running.

• PCpartpicker estimates 626W - would it pull that amount all the time?
• Do idle desktop PCs pull a lot of power? I'm not even sure if it would go idle with several VMs running at any giving time.
• Do any of you have experience with a situation like this? How badly did that affect your electricity bills?

This is the build I have in mind.

PCPartPicker Part List

CPU: AMD Ryzen 9 5900X 3.7 GHz 12-Core Processor  (£571.51 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
CPU Cooler: ARCTIC LIQUID FREEZER II 360 56.3 CFM Liquid CPU Cooler  (£98.99 @ AWD-IT)
Motherboard: MSI MAG X570 TOMAHAWK WIFI ATX AM4 Motherboard  (£198.57 @ Novatech)
Memory: G.Skill Ripjaws V 128 GB (4 x 32 GB) DDR4-3600 CL18 Memory  (£487.31 @ Newegg UK)
Storage: Western Digital Blue 2 TB M.2-2280 Solid State Drive  (£202.09 @ Ebuyer)
Storage: ADATA XPG SX8200 Pro 2 TB M.2-2280 NVME Solid State Drive  (£189.99 @ CCL Computers)
Video Card: Gigabyte Radeon RX 6800 XT 16 GB Video Card
Case: Corsair 500D Premium ATX Mid Tower Case  (£132.95 @ More Computers)
Power Supply: Corsair RM (2019) 850 W 80+ Gold Certified Fully Modular ATX Power Supply  (£125.39 @ Overclockers.co.uk)
Monitor: ViewSonic VX2758-2KP-MHD 27.0" 2560x1440 144 Hz Monitor  (£395.84 @ Amazon UK)
Total: £2402.64
Prices include shipping, taxes, and discounts when available
Generated by PCPartPicker 2020-12-01 13:08 GMT+0000

Thank you.

1.21 gigawatts? 1.21 gigawatts? Great Scott!