The Power Saving Guide

[ssdietsch]

i always buy motherboards with onboard graphics, so i can downgrade them into secondary computers when i upgrade while still keeping my expensive graphics card for the new machine or reselling the card to add a discount to the new build. i wish desktops could switch to integrated graphics while in 2D and pci-e for 3D like a laptop i read about recently. that would save 100W easily on my desktop. but, you're right that psu's are probably an even bigger waste hog that they didn't bother getting into.

 

[darth_farter]

Good Toms, but still not approaching SilentPCreview in terms of depth...

I'd rather see common tweaks like rmclock / crystalcpuid and rivatuner/nibitor that will take the numbers for the cpu/gpu to a new low with undervolting/LOW 2dspeeds while max p-state/performance 3d is still in full speed for noperformance cost.

My 90nm Windsor does 217x5 (lowest p-state) at 0.8volts 24/7 and highest at 217x12 @ 1.275 Vcore (overclocked but with CnQ IS possible for the nah sayers)

my 8800gts is running at rivatuner's 2d speed of 285/700core/shader & 485mhz mem which will let the card idle at 58degrees in vista aeroglass with room temp at 32*Celsius (tropics) Cpu Idles at 36-38 for the cores (cnps9500nt)...


I wonder when the bigger sites will start doing this for an article

also if someone knows what the Alt. Vdimm/clock options in the bios gives for real world results let me know.

 

[invader_allan]

I used to build desktop systems using mobile Athlon chips (I hate wind tunnel machines!), but when the intel iMac's came out I gave up on building a faster, quieter system. My 20" imac runs 2W when it is idle, and 65-75 watts when I'm using it. I've never seen more than 85W, although I've heard of people getting them up to 90W. It is nearly silent, and under load the fans crank up to very quiet (less noise than my old tower with custom cooling made under my desk, not right in front of me!). I think the future of computers is really going to be similar designs, as you can't beat it. Now, if you can't live without a top of the line (or even mid range) graphics system, you are going to need to burn 3x the power (and 15x at idle) and build a custom desktop. There is always going to be a small margin of the market on that bleeding edge. Personally, I can live without the fastest cards out there and stay 1.5 years behind the curve on game releases.

 

[jrwalte]

Thems a whole lot of words just to tell me to go into stand-by whenever possible.

We're geeks. We don't do something just cuz they tell us too 😛

You were also supposed to glean the suggestion that when choosing components, at least when you're buying new hardware anyway, you should consider energy consumption as inefficient devices can cascade into AC cooling load, case cooling cost, component life expectancy reduction and noise pollution problems and "suspend" doesn't really cover any of those points.

First off, your whole scenario of electricity becoming extremely expensive would probably never happen, except in a short-term scenario, as in what happened in California years ago. Electric companies are in it for the business - to make money. If you increase the price of electricity too high, people will make the initial large investment of solar energy, and then almost always get their electricity for free.

Electric companies don't want this. They need to keep their prices reasonable so people don't take that step of spending 5-10 grand (guess) to then get their own power for free. At the same time, those that can afford the currently expensive price will cause production of solar panels to go up and the price will go down, making it affordable for more people.

Now to the quote:

How does not placing your computer into suspend mode NOT cover all the points mentioned? On average, most high-end users leave their computer on 24/7. 90% of the time, that computer is probably sitting idle. If every high-end user placed their computer in suspend, they'd each be saving close to 200 watts. This is better savings than any energy efficient component could achieve!

In addition, suspend will not increase house heat and cause AC load, it will increase component life and it will reduce in noise pollution.

My point: at no cost to the user, suspend would be the best thing they can do to reduce the power consumption of their system. Don't knock the suspend mode

 

[flasher702]

Thems a whole lot of words just to tell me to go into stand-by whenever possible.

We're geeks. We don't do something just cuz they tell us too 😛

You were also supposed to glean the suggestion that when choosing components, at least when you're buying new hardware anyway, you should consider energy consumption as inefficient devices can cascade into AC cooling load, case cooling cost, component life expectancy reduction and noise pollution problems and "suspend" doesn't really cover any of those points.

First off, your whole scenario of electricity becoming extremely expensive would probably never happen, except in a short-term scenario, as in what happened in California years ago. Electric companies are in it for the business - to make money. If you increase the price of electricity too high, people will make the initial large investment of solar energy, and then almost always get their electricity for free.

Electric companies don't want this. They need to keep their prices reasonable so people don't take that step of spending 5-10 grand (guess) to then get their own power for free. At the same time, those that can afford the currently expensive price will cause production of solar panels to go up and the price will go down, making it affordable for more people.

Now to the quote:

How does not placing your computer into suspend mode NOT cover all the points mentioned? On average, most high-end users leave their computer on 24/7. 90% of the time, that computer is probably sitting idle. If every high-end user placed their computer in suspend, they'd each be saving close to 200 watts. This is better savings than any energy efficient component could achieve!

In addition, suspend will not increase house heat and cause AC load, it will increase component life and it will reduce in noise pollution.

My point: at no cost to the user, suspend would be the best thing they can do to reduce the power consumption of their system. Don't knock the suspend mode

Nice economic theory there. Now back it up with facts from what is actually happening in the real world. Even in the USA right now the disparity in electrical rates is at a factor of 3. http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_6_b.html Hawaii: 22.06, Connecticut: 18.43 (ok, so Hawaii is a small island chain, so here's second place), North Dakota: 6.26. Electrical rates soaring to 3x what they are is impossible, huh? For some people they already have. And that's not even looking at the rest of the world where some electrical rates are even higher. Expanding fossil fuel and hydro production facilities is not feasible (and environmental protection is only one of the reasons, the good hydro spots have already been taken and fossil fuel markets have become increasingly volatile and expensive). Your grade school level understanding of economic theory and blind faith that as long as greed and competition are involved that everything will be ok are no substitute for the facts of what is really happening. Also... there isn't any real competition in the energy market anyway. There's only one set of wires going to your house, you can't choose to buy from a competing provider so the gods of capitalism that you put so much faith in can't save us here. That's why we have to do more than "vote with our dollars". That's why things like Energy Star exist: to control the demand for electricity without regard to free economy, because there isn't a free economy on grid electrical supply.

Now on to your response about suspend: because as soon as you take the computer out of suspend you have all of those problems; suspend didn't solve them. I listed a bunch of problems OTHER than saving electricity.

 

[HotFoot]

There is continued development in hydro power here in Quebec, which already has the cheapest electricity in, well, the world as far as I know - something like 4.5 cents/kWh. I belive most of the new development is to satisfy export demand to NY, etc.

I'm amazed at the high price of electricity in some places. I think the case for solar power becomes very good around 25 cents/kWh. Wind has come down to as little as 4 cents/kWh, but it's highly dependent on location. Where I live, I see trucks hauling wind power turbine blades (huge ones!) all the time. I'm not sure where they're going - export or to elsewhere in Canada, but there sure is a lot of wind power development.

I really hope for cheap solar in the long run. I imagine a future where homes are mostly self-contained for power using DC - much more convenient for electronics.

As for competition in the current market, it's true that the distribution of electricity is a natural monopoly (and, so, poorly fit for capitalism). However, there is opportunity for competition in power generation. Some places allow you to choose your generation company (such as selecting "green" power, etc.). The juice that comes to your house isn't the same as the company's you've selected, but the power delivery system can place demand to generation stations according to customer choice.

 

[Grub]

Did I miss it or did the article not address the fact that most enthusiast's speaker systems can consume a whole bunch of watts as well. I know that my Logitech 5500 system is rated at 100 watts. Granted, I'm not running it at that sound level, but it does dissapate quite a bit of heat. So much so, that I've been turning it off when not needed (haven't put in the AC window units yet).

There should be a usb connector to the speaker controller that puts the amplifier in standby as well...get on it Logitech!

 

[HotFoot]

This is a good idea, based on the assumption that the amp in your computer's sound system is Class-A. If it's Class-B or even D, then the power consumption is related to the amount of sound coming out of the speakers.

And as far as being rated as 100W, that might be what your speakers are rated at, but that's certainly not what the amp inside is rated at. I've seen some incredibly cheap 100W sepakers. It takes less than 10W to make a lot of noise. Even very inefficient speakers should be in the 80 dB/W range (my main speakers are 95 dB/W).

My stereo amp gets hot, as it's Class-A - the power consumption is a function of volume setting, not the actual sound signal. However, my computer speakers never even feel warm.

Still... a digital sound signal connection that includes power switching would be a nice feature - and you might as well throw in turning the speakers off for standby or during times when no sound has been played for a certain time.

 

[flasher702]

Good points HotFoot. I wasn't aware that Les Québécois were building new hydro. Here in western USA serious consideration towards taking out smaller dams is being discussed. Can't get much electricity out of a mere 10-20ft drop but the cost to maintain and run them are still huge. Whether or not this is a good idea seems to vary greatly on a case-by-case basis (there's some wacko movement in California trying to take out some major reservoirs for instance, probably a bad idea). They are also deploying wind turbines like crazy in eastern Washington which is kinda cool but the power company seems to think they are entitled to slap them down anywhere they want... including IN a bird sanctuary near Ellensburg, WA.

Certainly at >$0.25/kWh, slight advancement in technology, some sort of smallish rebate program, and a sunny location a solar installation could pay for itself in 5 years and quickly save you money on the cost of buying a home. Some places aren't very sunny though and for people who couldn't afford the upfront cost they would just be stuck paying high electrical rates. Better to try and keep grid electricity as cheap and green as possible for as long as possible while the cost of photovoltaics goes down and the efficiency goes up (which really are the most convenient easiest way to generate power once installed, but they are expensive and something like only 12% efficient).

Home electric generation with native DC-powered devices really would be convenient though. You'd have multiple sources of power and maintaining a steady DC current is much easier and cheaper than conditioning AC power sources. Last winter western washington was hit by a smallish (almost category1) windstorm and some customers were without power for 2 weeks. Several million people were without power for 3 days or more. People were actually so unprepared to deal with a power outage that there were dozens of deaths and hundreds hospitalized. I was personally without power (zOMG no internet!) for 8 days, but thankfully I had a gas water heater and stove. I've lived in places where power disturbances have destroyed some of my electronics too. If I could generate most of my own power and just use the grid for backup and peak usage it would be most convenient indeed But first I need to be able to afford it and more expensive grid electricity doesn't make solar panels cheaper :/ However, the less electricity I use the more viable it is to generate my own power. If I wanted to I could use zero electricity... but I don't want that or anything even close to it xD

Devices and habits that give me the same or greater amount of pleasure while using less electricity with an upfront cost that is defrayed within a few years is definitely where it's at for the foreseeable future. If everyone is a little bit conservative and the rabid anti-environmentalists STFU for a bit (how they seem to get off on polluting and wasting as much as they can just to piss off people who are concerned about our shared fate is really astounding) we should be able to defray any major economic or environmental backlash so we can develop better technology to deal with the problem.

Suspend and/or turning it off when not in use can work quite well in some situations. I think GFX cards need to dynamically clock themselves down when not in use like CPUs do. Also, I think PSU efficiency should be required to be advertised prominently much in the same way it is required for household appliances.

 

[HotFoot]

It all comes down to common sense. Sometimes the economic analysis requires a little finesse and forward-thinking, but in the end we're talking about hard numbers. Regarding environmental motivations, I believe in a moderate conservative approach. My next car will be somewhat more efficient than my current one, but I'm not going through one car a year just to keep up with the latest MPG craze - same deal with computers. I'll be building my next desktop to consume about half the power of my current one, but that's not hard considering my current one is built around an overclocked Pentium D.

One example of common-sense is a little study (sorry, no link) that showed that a large estabilishemt such as a University would save a tremendous amount of money by employing someone to go around turning off the computers in all the different labs at night. I'm not sure why they don't have these computers set to standby/hibernate in the first place, but in any case the study showed that even at very low electricity costs, someone could be paid a full-time wage to just go around turning off the computers at night and then on again in the morning.

 

[flasher702]

Still... a digital sound signal connection that includes power switching would be a nice feature - and you might as well throw in turning the speakers off for standby or during times when no sound has been played for a certain time.

I think a SPDIF receiver should be able to accomplish this without too much difficulty. They would have to add some logic and additional buffers though. Would be kind of weird to have a ~500ms delay followed by 1000ms of the sound playing at double speed every time woke up your receiver. I wonder how long it would actually take to wake up a receiver from suspend and start playing sound... If they could do it in <100ms you probably wouldn't notice much. I wonder how much it would add to retail cost once mass produced... a couple dollars? Interesting idea.

I wonder if this could also be implemented on an embedded level. Turn off all the logic circuitry for audio playback when not in use in addition to any analogue amplifiers?

 

[coldmast]

the 80 plus program
http://www.80plus.org/manu/psu/manu_psu.htm

power efficient parts are usually better quality anyways

cheap is relative.

 

[No1sFanboy]

Did I miss it or did the article not address the fact that most enthusiast's speaker systems can consume a whole bunch of watts as well. I know that my Logitech 5500 system is rated at 100 watts. Granted, I'm not running it at that sound level, but it does dissapate quite a bit of heat. So much so, that I've been turning it off when not needed (haven't put in the AC window units yet).

There should be a usb connector to the speaker controller that puts the amplifier in standby as well...get on it Logitech!

You are onto something here. I just plugged my computers speakers into the watt meter. They are nothing impressive but probably typical for the average user; I have a wife and kids, big computer speakers would be wasted.
Altec Lansing ATP3, 30 watts RMS, 2.1 set.

These speakers are pulling 10 watts from the wall just for being plugged in. When I turn the volume down to zero the LED on the front goes out leading me to believe they are turned off. They still pulled 9-10 watts!
On the plus side I just tried them at about 70% volume playing White Stripes, Icky Thump,(bass heavy), they fluctuated between 4-19 watts. At high volume they dropped to 4 where at standby they never went below 9.

 

[jrwalte]

What would have made this article a lot more appealing to me is if the writer would have given us an understanding of exactly how much wattage is worth. He gives no cost analysis to show that it is worth consuming 50, 80, 100 less watts. And when I started to always place my computer in stand-by and hibernation, instead of leaving it on 24/7 with no stand-by or power saving, I never even noticed a large enough difference on my electric bill. My usage is still about the same per hour as it was prior - and I probably only have the computer on an average of 3 hours a day. My computer pulls a lot of power, as well. It's a high-end C2D system that can run FEAR and BF2 over 80 FPS average. In the summer I pay 7.976 cents per kWh.

I never even thought of how much wattage my Klipsch ProMedia Ultra 5.1 might be pulling. When playing music they probably use more wattage than my computer on idle. It has a BASH amp rated at 500 watts with 60/watts per channel for the 5 satellites and 170 watts for the 2x8" subs. It may be high in wattage but damn it sounds good and worth the electric cost to me 😉 If there is even a noticeable difference, which I haven't been able to see.

A year ago I started to always turn my speakers off after I noticed that my amplifier on the sub box was warm to the touch even when no sound was being sent to the unit. I wonder how many watts that speaker system uses while idle. I wonder how many watts my 700-watt JVC receiver uses while in standby mode. Might have to get a wattage meter just to stem my curiosity

 

[flasher702]

A bit of an intro about how to calculate the cost of electricity would have been nice.


http://michaelbluejay.com/electricity/cost.html
(he has a lot of articles about electricity that seem fairly well written for a layman audience)

http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_6_b.html
(or, of course, your utility bill)

That pretty much covers it I think.

So 50watts saved on a system that runs 24/7 is worth $43.6248 per year at national average rate. On a system that runs 4 hours a day it's $7.2708... not so impressive.

I am very encouraged by how many people have taken enough interest in this article to post comments. I hope they do more in the future.

*edit* really bad math! fixed

 

[billdcat4]

I used to build desktop systems using mobile Athlon chips (I hate wind tunnel machines!), but when the intel iMac's came out I gave up on building a faster, quieter system. My 20" imac runs 2W when it is idle, and 65-75 watts when I'm using it. I've never seen more than 85W, although I've heard of people getting them up to 90W. It is nearly silent, and under load the fans crank up to very quiet (less noise than my old tower with custom cooling made under my desk, not right in front of me!). I think the future of computers is really going to be similar designs, as you can't beat it. Now, if you can't live without a top of the line (or even mid range) graphics system, you are going to need to burn 3x the power (and 15x at idle) and build a custom desktop. There is always going to be a small margin of the market on that bleeding edge. Personally, I can live without the fastest cards out there and stay 1.5 years behind the curve on game releases.

I call error.... 2W idle for a Merom or a Yonah comp with a 20" lcd. The LCD itself must use at LEAST 50w.

 

[HotFoot]

He must have meant 2W when the system was in standby or hibernate - certainly with the monitor in sleep mode.

Just a single cooling fan in the system should be more than 2W.