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Power Usage - Fewest kWh

G

gizmo

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Jan 6, 2011
Messages
1,861
Apologies if this is in the wrong forum - thought the question is a bit nebulous making me uncertain as to where to place it.

After several attempts at consolidating systems, working on family computers, and general wheeling and dealing, I find myself with a myriad of systems.

X79
Z68
X58
Dell Mobile Precision M6700

All of them fit my needs, and far surpass them. Video server for the various Apple TV units in the house, and Source games for the most part.

In trying to whittle things down a bit, I am curious what kind of power usage I am looking at for the next 3 to 5 years. The Z68 and mobile system certainly have Optimus and Intel integrated video going for them - the system will run 24/7 and for that reason, being able to fall back on something integrated at night would be nice.

Thus the following questions (mind you, I do not have access to a killowatt):

  • If a monitor goes to sleep, do the video cards in a dedicated only system have reduced power draw?
  • Is it possible to objectively estimate power draw from CPU and GPU TDP?

The x79 is certainly the most future proof, but if I can pick up another $75 in selling it, as well as save 10% on utilities per month over the next 3 years, I'll gladly keep the Z68 system.
 
Lowest power draw is going to be the laptop followed by Z68, but all of them will ramp down power when not in use, so the draw isn't going to be excessive. Hard to say if it will be 10%, but I would think over the course of 3-5 years with 24/7 uptime, you'd notice the difference.

Discrete cards ramp down power, but I'm not sure it will equal just having the IGP running. If you're looking to run source games, I'm not sure that the Intel IGP is going to be enough though personally.
 
kirbyrj said:
Lowest power draw is going to be the laptop followed by Z68, but all of them will ramp down power when not in use, so the draw isn't going to be excessive. Hard to say if it will be 10%, but I would think over the course of 3-5 years with 24/7 uptime, you'd notice the difference.

Discrete cards ramp down power, but I'm not sure it will equal just having the IGP running. If you're looking to run source games, I'm not sure that the Intel IGP is going to be enough though personally.
Click to expand...


Would still have discrete GPU with z68, but thought Optimus with an Nvidia card would allow it to revert to integrated GPU on the chip, thus a bit of power savings. May be wrong.
 
The nice thing about Z68 is you can still add more HDDs as needed or change out graphics card over the course of 5 years. I imagine a quad core sandy/ivy bridge will still be a decent performer in 5 years for the kinds of tasks you're doing. Might be worth a little extra power usage for some flexibility.
 
gizmo said:
Would still have discrete GPU with z68, but thought Optimus with an Nvidia card would allow it to revert to integrated GPU on the chip, thus a bit of power savings. May be wrong.
Click to expand...

As far as I know, Optimus only works on laptops, it doesn't work on desktops. The discrete card will still be idling, instead of fully shutting down. Only AMD's cards are capable of fully shutting down, but there's no AMD version of Optimus as far as I can tell.
 
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