iPhone 5, Galaxy S3 Need Less Than $1 Electricity Per Year

[scook9]

[citation][nom]JacekForgotHisPassword[/nom]Well my rig is an i7 960 (OC'd to 3.84 ghz), 8 gigs of ram (OC'd to 1830 mhz), dual EVGA Geforce 660 cards in SLI, EVGA Geforce 460 (for PhysX), 2x 80 gig SSD drives, 2x 10k RPM 500 gig HD's, 1x external 2 TB drive, 1x external 1 TB drive. Case is the Silverstone RV-02 (90 degree rotated MoBo), 2x 230mm fans, 7x 120mm fans. Platinum+ PSU.[/citation]

Ya you probably should have stayed quiet rather than posting your specs....now we know you are not that good at monitoring your power usage. More likely your idle power usage is in the 150-200W range and your peak power usage is around 650W.

Here is a comparison - my HTPC which I monitor with a Kill-a-watt meter. It has a Core i5 2500k and dual GTX 570 cards. This is all powered by a 650W PSU. No matter what I tried I could not make this system pull more than 600W from the wall (not from the PSU, from the wall).

Now for a quick free lesson on computer power usage - power pulled from the wall is not power used by the computer parts. That is where that efficiency number comes into play. So in my case, 600W from the wall equals 600*80% efficiency is 480W used by the actual internals of the computer (thus why my 650W PSU is fine with that load). In reality I have higher efficiency than that (Corsair HX650) but wanted to keep the math simple.

Now for another example, 1200W PSU really does not mean jack in regards to your PC power usage. It is actually most efficient for a PSU to usually operate around 50% capacity, so in that regard you are actually doing well in terms of power usage. My desktop a few iterations ago was a Corsair AX1200 PSU for an i7 965 and dual 5870s with a GTX 275 for PhysX. That setup would not go past 700W from the wall. I knoew the 1200W was overkill for my build, but got it so that no matter what I did with my desktop, it would be covered for at least the 7 years of warranty on the PSU. It was an investment.

As stated above, computers just do not use much power these days.

 

[glasssplinter]

Remember that your 1200W power supply is converting 110 to 12, 5, and 3 volts. The input on a 1200W PSU is about 15 amps, so really you're drawing around 1650 watts from the wall. Watts=Amps x Volts

 

[ddpruitt]

Well my rig is an i7 960 (OC'd to 3.84 ghz), 8 gigs of ram (OC'd to 1830 mhz), dual EVGA Geforce 660 cards in SLI, EVGA Geforce 460 (for PhysX), 2x 80 gig SSD drives, 2x 10k RPM 500 gig HD's, 1x external 2 TB drive, 1x external 1 TB drive. Case is the Silverstone RV-02 (90 degree rotated MoBo), 2x 230mm fans, 7x 120mm fans. Platinum+ PSU.

I think others are giving you setup too much credit. You'll see peak loads only under startup. The SSDs use very little (7 at most combined), the mechanical HDs another 18 or so, the externals around 25 or so, the fans use around 50-70 (depending on their efficiency). Now keep in mind that under normal usage the external HDs will drop into a low power state (under 1W), depending on how the other drives are setup I'm sure at least one of the mechanical drives will drop into a low power state (again under 1W), the SSDs will only use power when they need to be accessed so the majority of their time will be spent under 1W, and the fans can be dropped to around 5W depending on how well setup they are.

Your CPU and Video are were your going to get the most power draw, I'd say around 450W under peak load 80W idle.

So you see even though you are atypical your still under 600W peak 150W idle, and that's worst case. A correctly setup system will draw a lot less under idle while peak is determined more by what it is that you're doing.

Again I invite you to measure the power draw of your system, I'll guarantee you'll see some interesting things going on (like being able to see the CPU switch into different states). Oh and by the way those onboard software measuring tools have no bearing on reality.

 

[unksol]

You're both atypical yes but you are using A LOT less than what you think. No PC will use more than 1kW in the US, you would be tripping and replacing breakers all the time if it did. Your power use doesn't go up dramatically with a bigger PSU, you're only getting more inefficient.

on the extreme end you can certainly pull more than a kilo watt, but your logic is extremely flawed. You don't replace breakers for tripping for starters. And a normal breaker for a bedroom is 15A. 15A x 120V = 1.8kW. almost any normal household would be fine running one. And someone running a rig that expensive would simply pot in a 20A breaker if it tripped, and drop higher gauge wire if needed

 

[ddpruitt]

on the extreme end you can certainly pull more than a kilo watt, but your logic is extremely flawed. You don't replace breakers for tripping for starters. And a normal breaker for a bedroom is 15A. 15A x 120V = 1.8kW. almost any normal household would be fine running one. And someone running a rig that expensive would simply pot in a 20A breaker if it tripped, and drop higher gauge wire if needed

My Dad's an electrician and once upon another life I used to work with him. Your correct in that most rooms are 15A, however your also drawing power to run a TV, lights, fan, etc so you have to have some extra room. On top of that most breakers tend to trip early for safety reasons (around 13A-14A continuous load). And from experience running a breaker near it's rated capacity for a long time tends to wear it out and it won't stay on (I know it sounds weird but I've seen it plenty of times). And I seriously doubt that the majority of people are going to wire for 20A.

There are systems that will draw more power, but they are purpose built and are specially set up with cooling and power requirements factored in.

Again buy one of those Kill-A-Watt tools and measure, you'll see what I mean. And while your at it see how much your other devices draw (charging your phone, TV, whatever).

 

[spentshells]

lies ,,, lies lies LTE dl at 25 Mbps constant over a year ......clearly lies

 

[nebun]

really now....i really don't think this is very accurate....try again

 

[jwcalla]

I have two computers at idle w/ two displays on and I get... 186 watts. yay me.

 

[Guest]

"And from experience running a breaker near it's rated capacity for a long time tends to wear it out and it won't stay on (I know it sounds weird but I've seen it plenty of times)."

Not an electrician, but i can confirm the above. You run a breaker near capacity and they dont last very long at all. I had to constantly replace a breaker at work that was loaded near capacity(would constantly trip, and then refused to stay on), like one per year. Once that load was split to more breakers, haven't had to replace them since.

The same can be said for power supplies, they last forever if you run them at 50-75% or so capacity, however if you are near max load, they die very fast.

 

[chewy1963]

[citation][nom]ddpruitt[/nom]You're both atypical yes but you are using A LOT less than what you think. No PC will use more than 1kW in the US, you would be tripping and replacing breakers all the time if it did. Your power use doesn't go up dramatically with a bigger PSU, you're only getting more inefficient.For those that think they have a "huge" PC that uses "atypical" amounts of power, I challenge you to actually measure your machines usage. I find that this is very enlightening, particular those times when you think your using a lot of juice.[/citation]

Actually, your average US 15 amp outlet can take >1500 watts of draw. Just about every blow dryer made in the last 20 years uses 1500 watts and it doesn't trip any circuit breakers (unless you throw it into a bathtub full of water).

I agree with your point (that most people's machines don't use as much power as they think), but one can easily draw more than 1kw from an outlet.

I think the biggest power savings we've seen in PC's is simply the move from CRT monitors to LCD/LED ones. My old 17" CRT monitor used around 200 watts of power, my current 20" LCD/LED monitor uses around 30 watts. Add to that all the people who have changed from CRT to LCD/LED television (in aggregate) and you see a ton of savings in that one technology alone.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

[citation][nom]ddpruitt[/nom]My Dad's an electrician and once upon another life I used to work with him. Your correct in that most rooms are 15A, however your also drawing power to run a TV, lights, fan, etc so you have to have some extra room. On top of that most breakers tend to trip early for safety reasons (around 13A-14A continuous load). And from experience running a breaker near it's rated capacity for a long time tends to wear it out and it won't stay on (I know it sounds weird but I've seen it plenty of times). And I seriously doubt that the majority of people are going to wire for 20A. There are systems that will draw more power, but they are purpose built and are specially set up with cooling and power requirements factored in.Again buy one of those Kill-A-Watt tools and measure, you'll see what I mean. And while your at it see how much your other devices draw (charging your phone, TV, whatever).[/citation]

Not sure about what you have in the US, but the C-Curve breakers in my switchboard are rated at instantaneous trip for currents above 5-10In, where In is the current they are rated for. In is the maximum continuous current that a breaker will not trip at. This prevents breakers being tripped by inrush currents eg motor starts.

And yes, most of my house is wired with 2.5mm^2 cable, and 20A breakers. Standard is 16-20A, depending on age. Note this is at 230V, so up to 4800W per breaker.

 

[Someone Somewhere]

That was meant to be 4600W. Aus uses 240V, NZ 230V.

 

[luciferano]

[citation][nom]chewy1963[/nom]Actually, your average US 15 amp outlet can take >1500 watts of draw. Just about every blow dryer made in the last 20 years uses 1500 watts and it doesn't trip any circuit breakers (unless you throw it into a bathtub full of water). I agree with your point (that most people's machines don't use as much power as they think), but one can easily draw more than 1kw from an outlet.I think the biggest power savings we've seen in PC's is simply the move from CRT monitors to LCD/LED ones. My old 17" CRT monitor used around 200 watts of power, my current 20" LCD/LED monitor uses around 30 watts. Add to that all the people who have changed from CRT to LCD/LED television (in aggregate) and you see a ton of savings in that one technology alone.[/citation]

Not all CRTs are nearly so power-hungry. Changing to LCD from CRT doesn't necessarily save a lot of power, but changing from older CRTs to newer LCDs will usually make such changes. It's not necessarily the display technology difference that changes power consumption so drastically, but simply overall improvements. Some of the newest CRTs from before LCDs really took over weren't half bad at all in power consumption.

 

[IndignantSkeptic]

What we really need to find out is how much it adds to your electricity bill to run folding@home on your PC or PS3 constantly. I noticed a lot of people seemed to stop letting folding@home run when the recession came.

 

[Guest]

I stopped folding@home in the summer. Folding in the winter in a room that needs the heat, fine. Folding in a room that needs air conditioned, not so good.