a little kill-watt-fun to help you choose your psu

[Lestat]

From time to time many of us, thruought various threads have posted
the power consumption of our pc using a nifty little device known as a
Kill-a-watt (http://www.amazon.com/P3-International-P4400-Electricity-Monitor/dp/B00009MDBU/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1220227113&sr=8-1)

You can alternately buy a power strip with kill-a-watt built in, which is a
wicked little idea
kill-a-watt power strip (http://www.amazon.com/P3-International-P4320-Kill-Watt/dp/B000UKSESK/ref=pd_bbs_sr_3?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1220228136&sr=8-3)

You can also get similar results if you use a good battery backup that
allows for realtime measurements of votlage, amps, watts, etc.

This nifty little tool plugs in line with any 120v power device, be it PC, TV,
microwave, Fridge, washer/driver, anything, and gives you a real time
accurate read out of the current draw the device is requesting from your
house or apartment.
You can alternately plug your surge protector into the device and measure
what your entire rig uses (PC, Monitor, External drives, and other devices
plugged into the power strip)

Readout(s) include - Volts, Amps, Wattage, VoltAmps, Hz, PF (power factor),
and kwH [(kilawatt hours) which can be used to determine your electrical
costs on a daily or monthly or yearly basis] perfect thing for you money
conscience crunchers.

So what does this have to do with you?

Maybe you want to know if you need a new, more powerful PSU
and you just have no idea how big of one to get.
Or maybe your just curious how much juice your beast is drinking
everyday.

Well i think this would be a great thread to sticky in this section.
This gives people the chance to come in and look at what other people
are reporting they are getting for wattage draw off their posted configuration.

First and foremost i would like to say that computers are not pulling nearly
as much power as people think they are. the problem there in becomes what
lower wattage PSU has enough amps to power the devices. Amps are the
octane level of your wattage. Without the punch the wattage alone isn't
enough.
and that is a problem. most lower ie; 500w psu's dont have the power
in amperage, so you are forced to get a larger unit. (sly little trick
those psu makers have pulled on us)

I'll start it off.

Please post the hardware you're testing (complete list please) don't just
say "see the hardware in my sig" because many of the hardware(s) we
put in our sig's change frequently.

follow this simple guideline.
PLEASE lists your current overclocked state (if any) at the time of test(s)

Cpu -
Motherboard -
Ram -
Hard drives (and number of them) -
Video card(s) -
Sound Card -
Power Supply -

For reporting your results it gets a little more indepth.
So lets keep it simple.

Testing should consist of the following tests
Each test should show results for Wattage (average or Max)
For the following test scenerios.
You may, if you wish, alternately add in any of the other readouts
the device displays. ie; VoltAmps, Amps, Volts, Hz, PF


Bios Idle
Desktop Idle (allow the desktop to come to a complete idle state)
OCCT or Prime Load -CPU Load (allow program to run for 3-5 minutes)
3DMark/Vantage or game of choice - Graphics Load (allow benchmark to
run completely making notes for each stage of the test(s). For a game if
there is a game benchmark batch file run that at your normal gaming
resolution. Different tests will give different results. so if you wish to
average them, that is ok.



Here are my personal results.
as you can see i am really only using about 1/2 the power that my PSU
can provide in terms of Wattage.
In regards to amps drawn thats a different story, the kill-a-watt can not
measure amps at 12vDC inside the case and amps drawn in terms of
120vAC are going to be only a fraction of the vDC.

So i am forced to buy a larger more expensive PSU because of the total
amps drawn on the 12v rails. which i have no way of measuring currently.
(although there are devices that can measure such things)

Cpu - Intel Core2Quad Q9650 @ 3.85ghz 1.30v
Motherboard - Asus Maximus Formula
Ram - OCZ Reaper PC9200 1126mhz 1.98v
Hard drives - 3x 36gb Raptors Raid0, 2x 500gb Raid0
Video card - PNY XLR8 GTX280 690/1485/1225
Sound Card - SB X-Fi Xtreme Gamer
Power Supply - Cooler Master Real Power 750w


Bios Idle - 250w
Desktop Idle - 215w
OCCT CPU Load - 320w
Futuremark Vantage

Graphics Test 1 - 380w Average - 384w peak
Graphics Test 2 - 384w Average - 396w peak
CPU Test 1 - 330w
CPU Test 2 - 350w Average, 370w Peak
Crysis CPU &GPU Bench - 450w Average

[Tonucci]

Nice thread.

Can you try an very demanding part of crysis ? IIRC someone at jonnyguru was testing several ways of getting the highest power consumption and crysis was the winner. Maybe maxed crysis with 2 CPU cores assigned to orthos would be an good idea since crysis wont use 4 cores 100% by itself.

[Lestat]

even though that sounds like a cool idea my goal is for real world psu demands
not crazy "you're never going to use that much power" type of demands.

in my eyes Vantage is pretty heavy and really slams your video card, which such way more power than your cpu does.

i updated my listing to show crysis cpu bench 2. massive increase in draw when compared to Vantage.

[hotwaxisbad]

You could run the crysis benchmark and World Community Grid on your quad and see also

[demonkevy666]

someone with a phenom need to do this too

[Lestat]

You could run the crysis benchmark and World Community Grid on your quad and see also

i got too much going on on this system to mess with WCG on it.
i reload way way too often and do video conversions which run at 90% already.
i mostly dont crunch on it as its my main unit, and i reload it alot testing nlite and vlite installs.

[Tonucci]

even though that sounds like a cool idea my goal is for real world psu demands
not crazy "you're never going to use that much power" type of demands.

in my eyes Vantage is pretty heavy and really slams your video card, which such way more power than your cpu does.

i updated my listing to show crysis cpu bench 2. massive increase in draw when compared to Vantage.

Wow, i didnt thought crysis consumption would be so high. :eek: Everyone should post their power consumption @ crysis.

You are right about the real world PSU demands...If every part of your system was running 100% it would draw ALOT more. But its always good to be prepared for worst case scenarios tho... Even tho crysis uses alot of power, its far from fully loading all cpu cores. Future games may draw even more.

If i purchase an killawatt Ill post my results here :up:

[Polizei]

What you should add in though is that the numbers you show is the power you are drawing from the wall. Multiply that by your efficiency (check your PSU specs) and you will get your wattage output in DC. Power supplies are measured in their DC output, not AC input, so having both sets of numbers would probably help buyers more.

[Nanometer]

try colorizing important stuff, like titles, and bullet points, and anywhere else u think deserves color, it makes it easier to follow. Good work. Perhaps you can give some price range recommendations.

[Lestat]

try colorizing important stuff, like titles, and bullet points, and anywhere else u think deserves color, it makes it easier to follow. Good work. Perhaps you can give some price range recommendations.

you on a black and white terminal Nano ? lol it is color. ;)

[Xcel]

Can't be arsed restarting my computer, it's crunching you know :p: no downtime. I get max consumption in Furmark.

140w idle @2d GPU clocks
182w WCG
197w OCCT
345w Furmark
370w Furmark @ high priority + OCCT @ normal priority


Intel C2D @ 3.2GHz
P5B DLX
2x1GB DDR800 c4
HD 4870 @ 820/1020
2x HDs
SB Audigy2 EX
DVD-rw