5 ms·

For those TV/media centre/home server use-cases, I suspect it’s also that enthusiasts might already have a collection of older, good-enough hardware for that pu

For those TV/media centre/home server use-cases, I suspect it’s also that enthusiasts might already have a collection of older, good-enough hardware for that purpose as well.

samtho 3y ago
Part of this is likely related to power consumption, particularly how power-inefficient older hardware is. A raspberry pi 3b+ will draw max of 2.5A at 5v, so 12.5Wh would make it 8.64KWh per month, and I pay about $0.13 per KWh, so about $1.21 per month for that thing to be screaming every waking hour. Meanwhile, desktop setups baseline power consumption is in the 100s of watts.
- fomine3 3y ago
  100W for baseline is too much for desktop. Maybe fail of power saving settings. Good tiny desktops can achieve about 12W at idle. https://www.servethehome.com/lenovo-thinkcentre-m900-tiny-project-tinyminimicro-guide/3/ https://www.servethehome.com/lenovo-thinkcentre-m900-tiny-pr...
  - Gigachad 3y ago
    I built a ryzen 5 desktop in 2020 and put 2 hard drives in it. Running a headless Linux install it would idle at 70w. Part of that was I had to put a small GPU in or it refused to boot.
    - unaindz 3y ago
      Sadly Ryzen is not as good as Intel for low-power efficiency, just high-power efficiency. Google spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1LHvT2fRp7I6Hf18LcSzsNnjp10VI-odvwZpQZKv_NCI/htmlview#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1LHvT2fRp7I6Hf18L...
  - samtho 3y ago
    I just threw in the 100 watt as a baseline because my 10+ year old rig runs that while idle and we seemed to be talking about using our older computers as the media player or home server.
    - fomine3 3y ago
      According to this, 12yo Sandy Bridge PC uses 52W to 74W. 100W is hungry even over 10 years ago. https://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-intel-core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/21 https://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-... https://www.anandtech.com/show/7003/the-haswell-review-intel-core-i74770k-i54560k-tested/2 https://www.anandtech.com/show/7003/the-haswell-review-intel...
      - somehnguy 3y ago
        You’re forgetting about the rest of the computer. Processors don’t run in isolation.
        fomine3 3y ago
        > Total System Power Consumption
      - samtho 3y ago
        The very machine I had in mind was actually my sandy bridge setup, specifically my i5 unlocked (K-skew) which I had a GTX-660ti (with a reported 110 watt TDP, but at idle it’s quite a bit less). Throw in the two spinning rust HDDs and, at idle, it does exceed 100 watts.

For those TV/media centre/home server use-cases, I suspect it’s also that enthusiasts might already have a collection of older, good-enough hardware for that purpose as well.

samtho 3y ago

Part of this is likely related to power consumption, particularly how power-inefficient older hardware is. A raspberry pi 3b+ will draw max of 2.5A at 5v, so 12.5Wh would make it 8.64KWh per month, and I pay about $0.13 per KWh, so about $1.21 per month for that thing to be screaming every waking hour. Meanwhile, desktop setups baseline power consumption is in the 100s of watts.

fomine3 3y ago
100W for baseline is too much for desktop. Maybe fail of power saving settings. Good tiny desktops can achieve about 12W at idle. https://www.servethehome.com/lenovo-thinkcentre-m900-tiny-project-tinyminimicro-guide/3/ https://www.servethehome.com/lenovo-thinkcentre-m900-tiny-pr...
- Gigachad 3y ago
  I built a ryzen 5 desktop in 2020 and put 2 hard drives in it. Running a headless Linux install it would idle at 70w. Part of that was I had to put a small GPU in or it refused to boot.
  - unaindz 3y ago
    Sadly Ryzen is not as good as Intel for low-power efficiency, just high-power efficiency. Google spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1LHvT2fRp7I6Hf18LcSzsNnjp10VI-odvwZpQZKv_NCI/htmlview#gid=0 https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1LHvT2fRp7I6Hf18L...
- samtho 3y ago
  I just threw in the 100 watt as a baseline because my 10+ year old rig runs that while idle and we seemed to be talking about using our older computers as the media player or home server.
  - fomine3 3y ago
    According to this, 12yo Sandy Bridge PC uses 52W to 74W. 100W is hungry even over 10 years ago. https://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-intel-core-i7-2600k-i5-2500k-core-i3-2100-tested/21 https://www.anandtech.com/show/4083/the-sandy-bridge-review-... https://www.anandtech.com/show/7003/the-haswell-review-intel-core-i74770k-i54560k-tested/2 https://www.anandtech.com/show/7003/the-haswell-review-intel...
    - somehnguy 3y ago
      You’re forgetting about the rest of the computer. Processors don’t run in isolation.
      - fomine3 3y ago
        > Total System Power Consumption
    - samtho 3y ago
      The very machine I had in mind was actually my sandy bridge setup, specifically my i5 unlocked (K-skew) which I had a GTX-660ti (with a reported 110 watt TDP, but at idle it’s quite a bit less). Throw in the two spinning rust HDDs and, at idle, it does exceed 100 watts.