Got me an energy meter!!

M

maverik-sg1

New member
Well after seeing a recent review in CustomPC I noticed that they were using a 3pin plug type energy monitor.

I purchased one today for £35 incl and am going to look at the energy consumption of the average power house - idle and loaded.

The test set up is an FX60 running at 3.425ghz at 1.56v - 2x1gb Corsair PC4400 ram, 7900GTX SLI, volt modded running at 760/1840 with 2x 74gb raptors and 2x200GB Seagate Storage drive.

My phase and watercooling run off a separate supply and I will just provide you with some idle load results on this to add to the main PC figures.

More to follow.

Mav
 
Nice, I'm looking forward to seeing the real figures involved - you can then work out the electricity costs! :O
 
Machine is Idle!!

Idle the system (not including the mach, watercooling or fans) is running at 256watts.

Apologies for the photo - tight space and strong flash, but you can see the important bit :)
 
Both Cores Loaded Up

Running Superpi on core 0 and OCCT Tortur Test on core 1 sees more power being used - from 338w (one application split acorss two cores) to 380w (two applications on individual cores).
 
Just The Mach

The Mach Pulled 400w on start-up and settled at 230w at above clocks.

Loaded up after 5mins of super and OCCT we can see that the power draw is 268w although it did creep up past 274w a few times.
 
phil123 said:
Havent you got one of those 1kw psu's anyway :p

Shows how this type of thing is bull: http://www.extreme.outervision.com/psucalculator.jsp
Click to expand...

I think you have to take all these things into consideration.

The reason why we need a big PSU is because once the energy gets into the PC the 240v is split by the PSU into 3.3v, 5v and 12v.

The main power draw is on the 12v rail and a 550w PSU does not provide enough amperage on the 12v rail to cope with an enthusiasts rig - the power calcuatlor takes this into consideration when sizing up an appropriate PSU for your specific needs :rolleyes: .

With the system switched on the ancillaries (mach, watercooling, monitor etc) consumes 340w in total - under load that figure rises to 389w.

So when my rig is idle I am using 240w + 340w = 580w.

Under 3d load my whole rig consumes 534w+340w = 777w

It was interesting to run these test to see where we are with this - I have to say that my mach has been modified to r507 and has a chilly1 head fitted - it's design allows to to take more heatload - the downside is that it consumes approx 15% more power (coz it takes 15% more load) than a Mach2 GT.

Also intersting in so far I know if I got watercooling that will consume probs 80-100watts of power and although my overclock will be lower, overall I'll be saving 200+watts of energy by doing so.

I have to admit though I was expecting the figure to be higher - as phil123 says based on my PSU being 1kw.

All in all the mach and the rig consume less power than I anticipated.

The energy meter at only £35 was money well spent I am sure it will come in useful for other things too.

Mav
 
name='maverik-sg1' said:
The main power draw is on the 12v rail and a 550w PSU does not provide enough amperage on the 12v rail to cope with an enthusiasts rig - the power calcuatlor takes this into consideration when sizing up an appropriate PSU for your specific needs :rolleyes: .
Click to expand...

I see what you are saying but if that is the case it is still misleading as someone could take the wattage as the be all and end all of their psu purchase. Perhaps devising a calculator with specific rail amperage measurements would be more helpful. Afterall you can buy 650w with crap rails. ;)
 
name='phil123' said:
I see what you are saying but if that is the case it is still misleading as someone could take the wattage as the be all and end all of their psu purchase. Perhaps devising a calculator with specific rail amperage measurements would be more helpful. Afterall you can buy 650w with crap rails. ;)
Click to expand...

For a free piece of software it's not far off the mark and is only a guide - as none of us are responsisble for the programming of such free guides - maybe it's best you take it up with the guy who is??

Although many reviews now are looking into the power useage of components it again re-iterates the importance of understanding what you are buying and what the 'knock-on' effects are of such upgrades.

If in doubt......... ask - EPUK has a wealth of information right here for you to tap into :D .

I have said it time and time again - the most critical part of any system is its power supply, which (sadly) is often overlooked when speccing up any upgrades.

This thread is not about that - merely an insight into how much a modern system costs to run.

Mav
 
So how much does it cost?

I've been anticipating the 'Mav Mathematics' which lead to the rise in cost of electricity bill ;)
 
maverik-sg1 said:
For a free piece of software it's not far off the mark and is only a guide - as none of us are responsisble for the programming of such free guides - maybe it's best you take it up with the guy who is??

Although many reviews now are looking into the power useage of components it again re-iterates the importance of understanding what you are buying and what the 'knock-on' effects are of such upgrades.

If in doubt......... ask - EPUK has a wealth of information right here for you to tap into :D .

I have said it time and time again - the most critical part of any system is its power supply, which (sadly) is often overlooked when speccing up any upgrades.

This thread is not about that - merely an insight into how much a modern system costs to run.

Mav
Click to expand...

I agree mav, I have been saying this for some time now, the draw on the whole system is a lot for just a 600w PSU and does not provide enough amperage on the 12v rails when useing X2 chips and SLI cards and will have a big impact on overclocks.

I is always a better bet to get the best PSU you can, as this will allow you to push your system that bit further than before and of course will be an investment for when you upgrade those chips and cards as you wont have to worry about the PSU.
 
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