undervolting idle vcore (sandybridge)

[ziddey]

any solutions exist? or anyone know what these guys can generally do at 16x100=1600? stock is 0.95v or so. or how much power savings there is to be had by dropping vcore. I know sandybridge does quite well at idle already, but when I'm paying around 30c/kwh, every little bit helps.

Currently, I'm running 4.3ghz at 1.25v, although I wouldn't mind clocking down a bit if there's no way to drop idle vcore independently.

I'd like to target somewhere around 50-70w idle. I know the video card will be a problem, especially since I'm trying to drive 3 monitors, so virtu i-mode is unfortunately out.

I am looking at possibly "upgrading" my trusty g92 to something a little more energy efficient, although there probably wouldn't be a good ROI. Figure the g92 draws 30w at idle. Load isn't too much of a factor since I'm not gaming 24/7, but when I do, all I play is cs:s, and soon, cs:go. So the g92 should be beyond adequate as it is. The gk107 gt640 comes to mind. It'd be just about a lateral upgrade from the g92, and considering I probably can't get much for the g92, I'm iffy about it. It does only draw 16 watts or so at idle, half that of the g92.

At 30c/kwh, that'd translate to $3 in savings every month if I ran the machine 24/7 (not likely unless I'm away on business/vacation and have a reason to keep it going).

So it's not something that'd really pay for itself anytime soon.

Am I really looking at sacrificing one monitor and going i-mode? Hell, in that event, the hd3000 would probably be adequate for cs:s/go, and I might as well just ditch the g92 altogether.

Of course the new hd4000 supports up to three monitors, but it's probably not time to upgrade yet.

 

[Forceman]

Honestly, you'd be better off saving money somewhere else. The gains to be made are so small it's hardly worth it, and most definitely not worth spending any money on (like an upgrade). Just buy one less coffee a week or something instead.

 

[xorbe]

any solutions exist? or anyone know what these guys can generally do at 16x100=1600? stock is 0.95v or so. or how much power savings there is to be had by dropping vcore.

I measured the eps12v plug going to the cpu on my 2500k setup (yes, I have a crazy splice-in harness w/simultaneous volts/amps/watts read-out.) You're wasting your time if you have all the power saving features enabled.

 

[Forceman]

Yeah, according to RealTemp (so who knows how accurate that is) my 2600K uses less than 10W idle, down to as low as 7W at times.

Set the drives to spin down and put the system to sleep at night, and the difference will get lost in a single use of the microwave to make popcorn.