pc power consumption

Message boards : Number crunching : pc power consumption
Message board moderation

To post messages, you must log in.

AuthorMessage
NewtonianRefractor
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 19 Sep 04
Posts: 495
Credit: 225,412
RAC: 0
United States
Message 905691 - Posted: 10 Jun 2009, 4:54:00 UTC

This is an interesting article on xbitlabs about power consumption. http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/coolers/display/system-wattage.html.

What do you guys think?
ID: 905691 · Report as offensive
Profile Carlos
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 9 Jun 99
Posts: 29753
Credit: 57,275,487
RAC: 157
United States
Message 905752 - Posted: 10 Jun 2009, 12:19:53 UTC

Great info. Thanks for posting. My rule of thumb has always been to over size my power supplies. I know that none of my systems use anywhere near 100% of what is available. But it's also intersting to note how much varriation there is between types of sytems. Might have to start testing RAC per watt of various systems.
ID: 905752 · Report as offensive
1mp0£173
Volunteer tester

Send message
Joined: 3 Apr 99
Posts: 8423
Credit: 356,897
RAC: 0
United States
Message 905842 - Posted: 10 Jun 2009, 17:14:22 UTC - in response to Message 905752.  

Great info. Thanks for posting. My rule of thumb has always been to over size my power supplies. I know that none of my systems use anywhere near 100% of what is available. But it's also intersting to note how much varriation there is between types of sytems. Might have to start testing RAC per watt of various systems.

On power supplies, you absolutely need margin: if the power supply is running flat out, it won't be able to handle occasional spike, it will run a lot hotter, and it won't last long.

It's less important, but you have to be careful on the other end too. Most PC power supplies need some load, and if you use a 1000w power supply on a very low power Atom motherboard it may not be able provide accurate regulated voltages under 20 watts.
ID: 905842 · Report as offensive
Profile -=SuperG=-
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 3 Apr 99
Posts: 63
Credit: 89,161,651
RAC: 23
Canada
Message 906250 - Posted: 11 Jun 2009, 17:50:59 UTC - in response to Message 905842.  

Great info. Thanks for posting. My rule of thumb has always been to over size my power supplies. I know that none of my systems use anywhere near 100% of what is available. But it's also intersting to note how much varriation there is between types of sytems. Might have to start testing RAC per watt of various systems.

On power supplies, you absolutely need margin: if the power supply is running flat out, it won't be able to handle occasional spike, it will run a lot hotter, and it won't last long.

It's less important, but you have to be careful on the other end too. Most PC power supplies need some load, and if you use a 1000w power supply on a very low power Atom motherboard it may not be able provide accurate regulated voltages under 20 watts.


Very true Ned.

Boinc Wiki




"Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds." -Albert Einstein
ID: 906250 · Report as offensive
Profile Carlos
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 9 Jun 99
Posts: 29753
Credit: 57,275,487
RAC: 157
United States
Message 906476 - Posted: 12 Jun 2009, 6:19:55 UTC

Totally agree with you Ned. I have been using 550-600 watt power supplies for my Quads. Most do not have big GPU's. So I have about 50% headroom.
ID: 906476 · Report as offensive
kittyman Crowdfunding Project Donor*Special Project $75 donorSpecial Project $250 donor
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 9 Jul 00
Posts: 51468
Credit: 1,018,363,574
RAC: 1,004
United States
Message 906508 - Posted: 12 Jun 2009, 7:51:27 UTC

Every one of my OC'd quads is on a 550W psu.......

Save the Frozen Nehi, which is employing a 750w Silencer.....

Mind you, the Kittyman is not doing any GPUing either...
"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

ID: 906508 · Report as offensive
Josef W. Segur
Volunteer developer
Volunteer tester

Send message
Joined: 30 Oct 99
Posts: 4504
Credit: 1,414,761
RAC: 0
United States
Message 906515 - Posted: 12 Jun 2009, 8:21:26 UTC - in response to Message 905842.  

Ned Ludd wrote:
...
Most PC power supplies need some load, and if you use a 1000w power supply on a very low power Atom motherboard it may not be able provide accurate regulated voltages under 20 watts.

Even if it does provide decent regulation, it will probably not be working efficiently. You might be wasting 20 watts in the PSU to provide 20 watts to the motherboard.
                                                                 Joe
ID: 906515 · Report as offensive
kittyman Crowdfunding Project Donor*Special Project $75 donorSpecial Project $250 donor
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 9 Jul 00
Posts: 51468
Credit: 1,018,363,574
RAC: 1,004
United States
Message 906516 - Posted: 12 Jun 2009, 8:25:23 UTC - in response to Message 906515.  

Ned Ludd wrote:
...
Most PC power supplies need some load, and if you use a 1000w power supply on a very low power Atom motherboard it may not be able provide accurate regulated voltages under 20 watts.

Even if it does provide decent regulation, it will probably not be working efficiently. You might be wasting 20 watts in the PSU to provide 20 watts to the motherboard.
                                                                 Joe

Well.....I think there would be very few who would set up a 1000w psu to run a 20w mobo......unless they were highly misinformed.......
"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

ID: 906516 · Report as offensive
kittyman Crowdfunding Project Donor*Special Project $75 donorSpecial Project $250 donor
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 9 Jul 00
Posts: 51468
Credit: 1,018,363,574
RAC: 1,004
United States
Message 906522 - Posted: 12 Jun 2009, 8:38:25 UTC
Last modified: 12 Jun 2009, 8:46:30 UTC

And I might add.........

The Frozen Nehi...which is currently at he #20 spot in the top crunchers worldwide.....

Is currently showing power consumption.......from the mains.....as measured by a Killawatt before the psu......of about 390-400 watts........

And this baby is OC'd to the kilt.

One HD...a triple mini fan setup cooling the RAM, a DVD rom, and a floppy....

And a little kitty statue sitting on the vid card, but they are not Cuda ready......LOL.

And I got the vcore ramped way up......

So......minus the GPU folks, if you wanna know what will run an i7 full bore,
500w or so will be enough.

But a little overkill will not hurt, the psu does not draw much more than actually consumed, especially with the high efficiency types.
"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

ID: 906522 · Report as offensive
1mp0£173
Volunteer tester

Send message
Joined: 3 Apr 99
Posts: 8423
Credit: 356,897
RAC: 0
United States
Message 906754 - Posted: 12 Jun 2009, 16:56:35 UTC - in response to Message 906516.  

Ned Ludd wrote:
...
Most PC power supplies need some load, and if you use a 1000w power supply on a very low power Atom motherboard it may not be able provide accurate regulated voltages under 20 watts.

Even if it does provide decent regulation, it will probably not be working efficiently. You might be wasting 20 watts in the PSU to provide 20 watts to the motherboard.
                                                                 Joe

Well.....I think there would be very few who would set up a 1000w psu to run a 20w mobo......unless they were highly misinformed.......

It is said that you should "never ascribe to malice what is equally explained by stupidity."

... but it's probably not a case of being misinformed, but uninformed.

In my opinion, the power supply should not be more than 4 times the actual power draw, and not less than 1.2 times the actual draw.

My 16w server has a 60w power supply.
ID: 906754 · Report as offensive
Profile zoom3+1=4
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 30 Nov 03
Posts: 65709
Credit: 55,293,173
RAC: 49
United States
Message 906769 - Posted: 12 Jun 2009, 17:21:43 UTC - in response to Message 906508.  

Every one of my OC'd quads is on a 550W psu.......

Save the Frozen Nehi, which is employing a 750w Silencer.....

Mind you, the Kittyman is not doing any GPUing either...

And a mere 750w might do It for the lower end gpu cards, But not for the GTX295 and definitely not for two of them either. :D
The T1 Trust, PRR T1 Class 4-4-4-4 #5550, 1 of America's First HST's
ID: 906769 · Report as offensive
Iona
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 12 Jul 07
Posts: 790
Credit: 22,438,118
RAC: 0
United Kingdom
Message 907294 - Posted: 13 Jun 2009, 15:29:52 UTC

I may seem to have 'over-kill' on one of my PCs.....an 850W Modular PSU feeding an MSI P35 Platinum, Intel E6550 CPU (2.33GHz @ 1.066 GHz), 2 GB Patriot DDR2 RAM, 2 X NEC DVD 'burners', 2 X Hitachi 500 GB drives, an X-Fi Platinum and an elderly (but quite adequate) Radeon X1900XTX. Cost was a consideration, naturally, but, the biggest considerations were given to the current delivery capability and future upgrades. While there were PSU's that could meet the total demands of the system, when I looked more closely at things, it was not 'all light'. The amount of current that a PSU can safely deliver on the various 'rails', has to be considered - many modern multi-rail PSUs cannot match some of the older 'desireable' PSUs with their single rail, for current delivery.

I like peace and quiet, too....I will therefore, more likely, select a PSU with 12 cm fans running at, say, 1200 rpm, as against one with 9 cm fans running at 3000 rpm. Moving air, is noisy and I have gone down that path. With my choices and buying a quiet PSU that delivers the current needed on all the rails, I have also ended up with a PC, that is quieter, more powerful and cheaper to run, than a 3.2 GHz P4 that I used to run (and still have) with a 550w PSU.

Keep crunching, Iona XXX


PS. Did I mention that I have a CGLI Elect Tech Cert?
Don't take life too seriously, as you'll never come out of it alive!
ID: 907294 · Report as offensive
kittyman Crowdfunding Project Donor*Special Project $75 donorSpecial Project $250 donor
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 9 Jul 00
Posts: 51468
Credit: 1,018,363,574
RAC: 1,004
United States
Message 907339 - Posted: 13 Jun 2009, 18:00:45 UTC - in response to Message 907294.  

The amount of current that a PSU can safely deliver on the various 'rails', has to be considered - many modern multi-rail PSUs cannot match some of the older 'desireable' PSUs with their single rail, for current delivery.


Keep crunching, Iona XXX


PS. Did I mention that I have a CGLI Elect Tech Cert?

Single 12v rail power supplies are not a thing of the past.....
PC Power and Cooling still makes them, and they are some of the best PSUs I am aware of....I have a 750W Silencer on the Frozen Nehi, and it is efficient, cool, and quiet. Fine power supply.
"Freedom is just Chaos, with better lighting." Alan Dean Foster

ID: 907339 · Report as offensive
FiveHamlet
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 5 Oct 99
Posts: 783
Credit: 32,638,578
RAC: 0
United Kingdom
Message 907379 - Posted: 13 Jun 2009, 21:36:55 UTC

For what it might be worth my i7 920 power consumtion is as follows:
250 watts idle
346 watts running 8 cores
335 watts running no cpu tasks with 1 gpu running Cuda
431 watts running no cpu tasks with 2 gpu's running Cuda
530 watts running full load 8 cores running cpu tasks and 2 gpu Cuda
I have a 850 watt active psu in the rig
Dave
ID: 907379 · Report as offensive
OzzFan Crowdfunding Project Donor*Special Project $75 donorSpecial Project $250 donor
Volunteer tester
Avatar

Send message
Joined: 9 Apr 02
Posts: 15691
Credit: 84,761,841
RAC: 28
United States
Message 907388 - Posted: 13 Jun 2009, 22:29:35 UTC - in response to Message 907339.  

The amount of current that a PSU can safely deliver on the various 'rails', has to be considered - many modern multi-rail PSUs cannot match some of the older 'desireable' PSUs with their single rail, for current delivery.


Keep crunching, Iona XXX


PS. Did I mention that I have a CGLI Elect Tech Cert?

Single 12v rail power supplies are not a thing of the past.....
PC Power and Cooling still makes them, and they are some of the best PSUs I am aware of....I have a 750W Silencer on the Frozen Nehi, and it is efficient, cool, and quiet. Fine power supply.


Agreed. For all my high end builds I prefer to use PC Power and Cooling PSUs. In fact, I try to stay away from the multi-rail PSUs because its just too hard to track down a problem when you have too much loaded on a single rail that is under-powered. A single, powerful 12v rail works best.
ID: 907388 · Report as offensive

Message boards : Number crunching : pc power consumption


 
©2024 University of California
 
SETI@home and Astropulse are funded by grants from the National Science Foundation, NASA, and donations from SETI@home volunteers. AstroPulse is funded in part by the NSF through grant AST-0307956.