Gigabyte DES - motherboard power supply management
Moderators: NeilBlanchard, Ralf Hutter, sthayashi, Lawrence Lee
interesting, if i'm not misunderstood the new boards with an 'E' in the model name are pretty much the same hardware as the old boards but with a newer bios installed?
for the gui display, what does it actually mean..i don't quite understand the picture here... how can you have a total power saving over some period of time, in Watts instead of joules or say kWh ??
hoorayyyyyand for those that don’t like flashing lights on their motherboard there’s also the option to switch them off in this utility
for the gui display, what does it actually mean..i don't quite understand the picture here... how can you have a total power saving over some period of time, in Watts instead of joules or say kWh ??
I hear something similar is used in laptops. Is a good idea, but must be implemented in bios, not with some application.switching of power phases depending on CPU workload
On x48 mainboard things look good: http://www.tweaktown.com/reviews/1271/1 ... index.html
But at idle difference is too big to be only a power phases tweak. Hmmm, 52W difference. And 47W difference at full load ?
Here's another test: http://www.hardspell.com/english/doc/sh ... ws_id=2295
If I read their results correctly:
With C1E, EIST, VID Auto, but DES off
Idle: CPU 10.09W, System 102W
Load: CPU 36W, System 136W
With C1E, EIST, VID Auto, DES on
Idle: CPU 5.5W, System 99W
Load: CPU 29.39W, System 130W
They also tested other configurations. I'm not sure how the TweakTown testing methodology differs but radically different results there. Both use the X48 Gigabyte motherboard though with two significant differences:
CPU: QX6700 (overclocked to 3GHz) vs. E8500
graphics card: 8800GTS 640MB vs. NVIDIA FX 330 (a low-end part).
I assume the graphics card contribution would not be affected by DES.
If I read their results correctly:
With C1E, EIST, VID Auto, but DES off
Idle: CPU 10.09W, System 102W
Load: CPU 36W, System 136W
With C1E, EIST, VID Auto, DES on
Idle: CPU 5.5W, System 99W
Load: CPU 29.39W, System 130W
They also tested other configurations. I'm not sure how the TweakTown testing methodology differs but radically different results there. Both use the X48 Gigabyte motherboard though with two significant differences:
CPU: QX6700 (overclocked to 3GHz) vs. E8500
graphics card: 8800GTS 640MB vs. NVIDIA FX 330 (a low-end part).
I assume the graphics card contribution would not be affected by DES.
3,1GHz@1,1V, C1E off, EIST off, DES offmcb wrote:Here's another test: http://www.hardspell.com/english/doc/sh ... ws_id=2295
With C1E, EIST, VID Auto, but DES off
Idle: CPU 10.09W, System 102W
Load: CPU 36W, System 136W
With C1E, EIST, VID Auto, DES on
Idle: CPU 5.5W, System 99W
Load: CPU 29.39W, System 130W
idle: 10,25 W (12P)
load: 31,85 W (12P)
3,1GHz@1,1V, C1E off, EIST off, DES on
idle: 7,00 W (4P)
load: 29,40 W (8P)
3,1GHz@1,1V, C1E on, EIST on, DES on
idle: 5,50 W (4P)
load: 29,40 W (8P)
TweakTown has an updated article on DES here: http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/1275/1.
In part, it reads:
"The test system consisted of the aforementioned GIGABYTE P35-DS3P rev 2.1 motherboard, a Core 2 Duo E6700, 2GB of DDR2 800 memory, a Radeon X1950 Pro, four SATA hard drives, an Ageia PhysX card, an X-Fi Elite Pro, two optical drives and three 120mm fans..."
"After about two days of uptime the system used had saved close to 400W of power, not much in the big scheme of things, but if you have a PC up and running 24h a day then you can save a lot of power in the long run. The actual number for this system was about 189W a day, which turns out to be close to 69,000W 69kWh a year, since power is normally measured in kWh...."
The article (and apparently the DES UI) confuses power with energy. I assume this means they observed a 189W-hr energy savings over 24hrs or 8W power reduction on average.
In part, it reads:
"The test system consisted of the aforementioned GIGABYTE P35-DS3P rev 2.1 motherboard, a Core 2 Duo E6700, 2GB of DDR2 800 memory, a Radeon X1950 Pro, four SATA hard drives, an Ageia PhysX card, an X-Fi Elite Pro, two optical drives and three 120mm fans..."
"After about two days of uptime the system used had saved close to 400W of power, not much in the big scheme of things, but if you have a PC up and running 24h a day then you can save a lot of power in the long run. The actual number for this system was about 189W a day, which turns out to be close to 69,000W 69kWh a year, since power is normally measured in kWh...."
The article (and apparently the DES UI) confuses power with energy. I assume this means they observed a 189W-hr energy savings over 24hrs or 8W power reduction on average.
X48 is an overclocked P35 so it consumes a little more.moogaloo wrote:I would be interested to see if there was a difference in power consumption in the new X48 Motherboard and the old P35 motherboards with the bios / utility update.
In the article it mentions that the X48 has 12 phases and the P35 only has 6 phases. I wonder how this compares?
Also, 12 phases consume more than 6 phases.
By the way, the largest differences are due to the CPU: new penryns have an impressive low power consumption, and so DES has less influence, compared to "old" Core 2 Duo.
in reference to the notion that a bios update would enable this on a p35 board not currently supported, i'd like to see that information. i do know that i get a not compatible message when i try to run it on a p35 ds4 revision 2.0. sucks pretty big time that they didn't implement this feature by the 3rd revision of my board. on the other hand, i like to do some overclocking with my system and it doesn't sound like the 2 notions will go hand in hand very well, if at all.
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I’m under the impression that you need the latest revisions (2.1!) for this feature to work. If it doesn’t work when you over-clock the FSB but leave the VCore as standard then it has limited appeal to me. Otherwise it sounds promising.TENAX wrote:in reference to the notion that a bios update would enable this on a p35 board not currently supported, i'd like to see that information. i do know that i get a not compatible message when i try to run it on a p35 ds4 revision 2.0. sucks pretty big time that they didn't implement this feature by the 3rd revision of my board. on the other hand, i like to do some overclocking with my system and it doesn't sound like the 2 notions will go hand in hand very well, if at all.
TrustedReviews tested the six-phase GA-EP35-DS4 with Intel's QX9650 and came away with 5W savings at idle and 10W under load.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/motherboa ... P35-DS4/p1
By the way, this board has officially landed in my area.
http://www.trustedreviews.com/motherboa ... P35-DS4/p1
By the way, this board has officially landed in my area.
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I imagine the power savings using the entry level boards would be smaller or negligible as don’t they use 3 phase power circuitry?
I’m thinking of upgrading my Gigabyte G33 board due to limited PCI/PCIe slots and am only interested in the EP35-DS3 or DS3R so I’m wondering whether to expect any power savings.
I’m thinking of upgrading my Gigabyte G33 board due to limited PCI/PCIe slots and am only interested in the EP35-DS3 or DS3R so I’m wondering whether to expect any power savings.
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seems like DES isn't all its marketed up to be. Using Easy Tune 5/changing Vcore in bios would net bigger energy savings.CA_Steve wrote:Anand weighs in
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It’s not that useful a review in that I doubt many SPCR readers are using an X48 board with an Extreme Edition CPU, PC3-14000 RAM and a kW power supply.CA_Steve wrote:Anand weighs in
Overall I can’t say that this seems to offer much particularly as Gigabyte boards typically under-volt so well in the BIOS. If I do upgrade my G33 board I’ll test it against one of these new boards as a comparison. The lack of over-clocking makes it unattractive to me as I often buy a lower FSB speed chip and push it up to as close to 3GHz as I can using the stock voltage range.
No kidding. Anyone who is running a system which idles close to 200w is not going to bother with something that reduces power utilization by 5-10w.smilingcrow wrote:It’s not that useful a review in that I doubt many SPCR readers are using an X48 board with an Extreme Edition CPU, PC3-14000 RAM and a kW power supply.CA_Steve wrote:Anand weighs in
Now if DES reduces power utilization by 5-10w on a "normal" system which idles between 50-100w, now we're talking something substantial.
I was wondering about what they said about DES at Anandtech: "Intel's own power saving features known as C1E and EIST must be set to disabled before DES gains full control of altering processor core voltage on-the-fly. It is also important to point out that full operational use of DES is limited to stock (Auto) BIOS settings for both processor and memory busses."
But those Hardspell numbers seem to defy this as they got better numbers with everything ON.
But those Hardspell numbers seem to defy this as they got better numbers with everything ON.
The last (as of Feb 3) response to the Anandtech article:
RE: EIST needs to be off? by Rajinder Gill, 10 days ago
Not really, these processors are now so efficient at idle that the core speed reduction does little to save extra power. Gigabyte have sorted out the EIST/C1E and DES issue in the latest BIOS. You can now have all 3 on simultaneously. Unlike the previous releases..
RE: EIST needs to be off? by Rajinder Gill, 10 days ago
Not really, these processors are now so efficient at idle that the core speed reduction does little to save extra power. Gigabyte have sorted out the EIST/C1E and DES issue in the latest BIOS. You can now have all 3 on simultaneously. Unlike the previous releases..
DES on my GA-EP35C-DS3R does almost nothing. i'm measuring at the wall, and even with the highest level of voltage cut and speed throttle , it can only save 1 or 2 watt
i put this down to E8400 already being a pretty power efficient cpu. this DES technology seems to have missed the boat, would have been much more useful a few years ago when processors were eating lots of power
perhaps it would be better applied to GPU who are still power gluts, and idle more of the time too
i put this down to E8400 already being a pretty power efficient cpu. this DES technology seems to have missed the boat, would have been much more useful a few years ago when processors were eating lots of power
perhaps it would be better applied to GPU who are still power gluts, and idle more of the time too
Very interesting remark. I ordered a P35-DS3P with an E8400 recently. Still waiting for the cpu, but I received the mainboard and it's an revision 2.0. If I understand you correctly it wouldn't be worth the extra trouble and money to get it swapped for a rev 2.1 then. Or are others with a comparable setup seeing different results?wim wrote:DES on my GA-EP35C-DS3R does almost nothing. i'm measuring at the wall, and even with the highest level of voltage cut and speed throttle , it can only save 1 or 2 watt
i put this down to E8400 already being a pretty power efficient cpu. this DES technology seems to have missed the boat, would have been much more useful a few years ago when processors were eating lots of power
perhaps it would be better applied to GPU who are still power gluts, and idle more of the time too