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Is there a metric to look for to understand what power consumption is at "idle" or something close to that? That is what confuses me. I don't want to spend a l
by mongol 6y ago
Is there a metric to look for to understand what power consumption is at "idle" or something close to that? That is what confuses me. I don't want to spend a lot of money on something that will be always on, and usually idling, and finding that its power usage is way higher than I thought. But perhaps there is a metric that tells that. I have not looked closely at it.
Also, even though the CPU may draw less, can still the power supply waste more, just because it is beefy? Comparing with a sports car, they have great performance, but also use more gas in ordinary traffic? Can a computer be compared with that?
- mlyle 6y ago> Is there a metric to look for to understand what power consumption is at "idle" or something close to that? That is what confuses me. I don't want to spend a lot of money on something that will be always on, and usually idling, and finding that its power usage is way higher than I thought. Community benchmarks, from Tom's Hardware, etc. The vendor numbers are make believe-- you can't use them for power supply sizing or for thermal path sizing. If you look at the cited TDP numbers today-- it can be misleading-- e.g. often Intel 45W TDP parts use more power at peak than AMD 65W parts. On modern systems, almost none of the idle consumption is the processor. The power supply's idle use and motherboard functions dominate. > Also, even though the CPU may draw less, can still the power supply waste more, just because it is beefy? Yes, having to select a larger power supply can result in more idle consumption, though this is more of a problem on the very low end.