Hi all,
I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, and I pay through the nose in electricity. We have a tiered energy payment, and some months I'm paying up to $0.40 per kwh for a portion of my energy. This means that for every idle watt, I pay $3.50 per year. For a 100W idle system, I'm paying $350 for electricity alone.
My current desktop is an Intel Q6600 w/ 4GB of RAM and an 8800GT. I haven't measured idle power, although I'm guessing it's close to 100W.
I'm considering replacing it with a low power machine for basic tasks (web + light gaming like Civizilation IV or some other games I've downloaded over Steam). I plan to still boot the Q6600 in the rare situation that I want to play a more graphically intensive game.
Any recommendations on a new system? I'm only interested in building a new box if I can pay for the machine with 1-2 years of energy savings. Would be great if I could get all of this + comparable performance to the Q6600 machine, but I'm guessing this isn't feasible.
Thanks for your help and suggestions!
Super-low-power desktop?
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frostedflakes
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bonestonne
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I agree with SFF, and with the AMD side of it.
I think even older/used parts could do the trick very well, such as an AMD 4xxxEE series and an ITX board. At the same time, even a mATX system could reach those numbers of low power, a PICO 90W or even a 60W.
At the same time, would a laptop system be able to compare? I know that laptops do have higher wattage bricks, however the battery portion could break it even right?
Just a thought.
I think even older/used parts could do the trick very well, such as an AMD 4xxxEE series and an ITX board. At the same time, even a mATX system could reach those numbers of low power, a PICO 90W or even a 60W.
At the same time, would a laptop system be able to compare? I know that laptops do have higher wattage bricks, however the battery portion could break it even right?
Just a thought.
I have one of those CULV laptops (UL30A-X5) and with the laptop battery removed, power consumption measured with a Kill-A-Watt is ~8W at lowest brightness. Pretty amazing considering that also includes the display.bonestonne wrote:At the same time, would a laptop system be able to compare? I know that laptops do have higher wattage bricks, however the battery portion could break it even right?
Re: Super-low-power desktop?
You really should start with actually measuring that, and while you are at it, other stuff too.NSParadox wrote:I haven't measured idle power, although I'm guessing it's close to 100W.
Only then you can make an educated decision about what is it that you really should replace, if anything.
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bonestonne
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I have a VIA PC platform, the PC3500G, and it runs on a 40W power brick comfortably (but warm).
Using a SSD or some CF card with SATA adapter, you could probably get down a little more (compared to a 3.5" 7200RM drive).
It's all in what you're really looking to use, it's hard to say you're going to be able to get your energy bill to pay for this in 2 years or less, because computers still aren't exactly "cheap."
Gaming and low power just don't go together well enough to say it would pay for itself in 5 years even.
Using a SSD or some CF card with SATA adapter, you could probably get down a little more (compared to a 3.5" 7200RM drive).
It's all in what you're really looking to use, it's hard to say you're going to be able to get your energy bill to pay for this in 2 years or less, because computers still aren't exactly "cheap."
Gaming and low power just don't go together well enough to say it would pay for itself in 5 years even.
Your $350 in savings assumes you leave the PC on and not in a sleep state 24/7/365.
As an aside:
To get to the $0.40/kWH tier, you have to be @ 200% of the baseline for your area. For the bay side of San Mateo county (and not the ocean side), the summer baseline is 12.1kWH/day. So, 200% is 24.2kWH/day. That's a lot of juice
For the bigger picture - get a kill-a-watt meter and measure everything in your place. You probably have a lot of sources with better payback than your PC. I had an old refrigerator that was consuming 40% of the electricity in my place and kicking me into higher tiers. Replacing that paid for itself.
Back to your specifics: Your idle power is probably more than 100W due to the 8800GT. Probably closer to 120W. Replace it with a 5770 and your idle power will drop 40W. You can also try underclocking and undervolting the Q6600. Or, if you want to throw money at it, you can buy the 2nd PC for non gaming use. The Mac Mini has the lowest idle power out there and Steam supports Mac now.
As an aside:
To get to the $0.40/kWH tier, you have to be @ 200% of the baseline for your area. For the bay side of San Mateo county (and not the ocean side), the summer baseline is 12.1kWH/day. So, 200% is 24.2kWH/day. That's a lot of juice
For the bigger picture - get a kill-a-watt meter and measure everything in your place. You probably have a lot of sources with better payback than your PC. I had an old refrigerator that was consuming 40% of the electricity in my place and kicking me into higher tiers. Replacing that paid for itself.
Back to your specifics: Your idle power is probably more than 100W due to the 8800GT. Probably closer to 120W. Replace it with a 5770 and your idle power will drop 40W. You can also try underclocking and undervolting the Q6600. Or, if you want to throw money at it, you can buy the 2nd PC for non gaming use. The Mac Mini has the lowest idle power out there and Steam supports Mac now.
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victorhortalives
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I built a system for just these requirements and kept the old one for "high power tasks" - file conversions etc.
The new system runs at under 40W when awake, (haven't checked it in a while so don't know exact figures - I'll update this when I have retested)
Zotac ION B overclocked to 2Ghz
2x 2GB 800Mhz Corsair memory sticks
1x 64GB Samsung SSD (all other drives on a GB LAN in a NAS)
1x 500rpm Scythe fan
DVD R/W drive
PSU : 60W Pico
The new system runs at under 40W when awake, (haven't checked it in a while so don't know exact figures - I'll update this when I have retested)
Zotac ION B overclocked to 2Ghz
2x 2GB 800Mhz Corsair memory sticks
1x 64GB Samsung SSD (all other drives on a GB LAN in a NAS)
1x 500rpm Scythe fan
DVD R/W drive
PSU : 60W Pico
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victorhortalives
- *Lifetime Patron*
- Posts: 207
- Joined: Wed Aug 08, 2007 1:50 am
- Location: Xhystos
UPDATE :victorhortalives wrote:I built a system for just these requirements and kept the old one for "high power tasks" - file conversions etc.
The new system runs at under 40W when awake, (haven't checked it in a while so don't know exact figures - I'll update this when I have retested)
Zotac ION B overclocked to 2Ghz
2x 2GB 800Mhz Corsair memory sticks
1x 64GB Samsung SSD (all other drives on a GB LAN in a NAS)
1x 500rpm Scythe fan
DVD R/W drive
PSU : 60W Pico
Just tested it again :
Off : 6.5W (power used by the Power Brick)
Booting : 38W max
Running : 31W/33W
See if you can borrow a Kill a watt or similar watt meter.
Many libraries, environmental groups or utilities have such for loan.
(e.g. see PG&E
http://www.pge.com/mybusiness/edusafety ... /index.jsp
Though that may be for businesses only.)
Use it to identify big energy users.
(e.g. lighting, cooling/refrigeration, etc.
http://www.pge.com/mybusiness/energysav ... ndex.shtml
Check the usual suspects (like cable boxes, televisions, DVRs, transformers and chargers for misc devices, etc.)
[Assume you have already done the no-brainer upgrades like CFLs.]
Instead of idling the system - turn it off (a simple power strip will
let you switch it to 0 power when not in use).
At that point you will have cut the electricity use by your computer a lot (assuming you don't actually use it 24/7).
You should also have an idea what your budget really is to consider upgrades. (In that short a time-frame, probably hard to find computer upgrades that would pay for themselves.)
Many libraries, environmental groups or utilities have such for loan.
(e.g. see PG&E
http://www.pge.com/mybusiness/edusafety ... /index.jsp
Though that may be for businesses only.)
Use it to identify big energy users.
(e.g. lighting, cooling/refrigeration, etc.
http://www.pge.com/mybusiness/energysav ... ndex.shtml
Check the usual suspects (like cable boxes, televisions, DVRs, transformers and chargers for misc devices, etc.)
[Assume you have already done the no-brainer upgrades like CFLs.]
Instead of idling the system - turn it off (a simple power strip will
let you switch it to 0 power when not in use).
At that point you will have cut the electricity use by your computer a lot (assuming you don't actually use it 24/7).
You should also have an idea what your budget really is to consider upgrades. (In that short a time-frame, probably hard to find computer upgrades that would pay for themselves.)