Intel Atom isn't providing low power consumption

A

athlon1.2

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I setup an Intel Atom for use as a pfSense. When measured with a Kill-a-watt it is using approx the same amount of energy as a Dell PC with a Pentium Dual Core E5800. How can this be? What is the point of the atom?

I was hoping for average power consumption approx 18 watts or less but without a hard drive its using 32 watts while the old pfSense (PII Compaq w/ hard drive) and a Dell Vostro (w/o hd) use 35 watts.
 
If it's one of the earlier atoms, the CPU does indeed only draw 8W... but the chipset draws 22W in the NB alone, lol.


Later ones resolved this, I think. Of course, not counting for PSU effeciency, power circuitry component quality, etc.
 
It's Atom single core 410 and NM10 chipset which has a rated TDP 2.1 watts.
 
Before we can really comment on your setup we need to know it's complete specs. What PSU? what storage devices? What motherboard?

P.S. bear in mind is that a kill-a-watt is NOT a precision measurement device and may well not be accurate at such small loads.
 
The Kill-A-Watt's precision is going to be just fine. Measuring voltage and current accurately is cheap these days, for a long time now.

Anyways, yeah what PSU, and what's the power factor as reported by the Kill-A-Watt?
 
So I picked up a 90w "PicoPSU" DC-to-DC. With this unit, power consumption is approx 17 watts alone and 22 watts with an PCI Intel dual 10/100 card. The SATA to CF adapter (populated) uses approx 1 watt and a USB flash drive approx 2 watts.

I'm crazy so I am going to try one of the Intel PCI-X 1000 adapters to see if they consume less power. 2 watts a chip seems excessive. I also need to re-test the above since I found the option in pfSense to enable SpeedStep.
 
athlon1.2 said:
So I picked up a 90w "PicoPSU" DC-to-DC. With this unit, power consumption is approx 17 watts alone and 22 watts with an PCI Intel dual 10/100 card. The SATA to CF adapter (populated) uses approx 1 watt and a USB flash drive approx 2 watts.

I'm crazy so I am going to try one of the Intel PCI-X 1000 adapters to see if they consume less power. 2 watts a chip seems excessive. I also need to re-test the above since I found the option in pfSense to enable SpeedStep.
Click to expand...

If you mean the Atom setup, there is no reason because desktop Atom chips do not have SS.
 
athlon1.2 said:
So I picked up a 90w "PicoPSU" DC-to-DC. With this unit, power consumption is approx 17 watts alone and 22 watts with an PCI Intel dual 10/100 card. The SATA to CF adapter (populated) uses approx 1 watt and a USB flash drive approx 2 watts.
Click to expand...

Dude, it's TWENTY TWO WATTS. That's very low. Turn on a light bulb and you've blown the power savings you're trying to get. Power is so damn cheap that, unless you're running off a battery and need a lot of runtime, saving a few more watts is pointless.
 
iconiK said:
Dude, it's TWENTY TWO WATTS. That's very low. Turn on a light bulb and you've blown the power savings you're trying to get. Power is so damn cheap that, unless you're running off a battery and need a lot of runtime, saving a few more watts is pointless.
Click to expand...

um, there may be other reasons for finding the power-hungry part and replacing it

electricity in (power) = heat out... if you want to minimize the heat buildup(eg you have 100 of these crammed together), you want to minimize the power going in
 
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