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Power usage of computer hardware
The 25 January blog entry Uninterruptible Power Supplies described why a UPS might be appropriate for your computer. Ever wonder how much power common computer items take? This matters if you’re looking into purchasing an uninterruptible power supply, or if you simply want to save money on electricity. I used a “Watts Up” power meter to measure how many watts each piece of equipment uses.
| Item | On | Sleep |
PowerMac G5 dual 2.5GHz |
215
|
0.0
|
| Apple 30" Cinema Display |
94*
|
0.0
|
| Apple 23" Cinema Display |
50
|
0.0
|
| Sun 24.1" LCD |
75
|
4.5
|
| Wiebetech Firewire 800 drive |
11
|
0.0
|
| Wiebetech Firewire 800 (2 drives) |
28
|
28**
|
| FirmTek SeriTek 2eEN4 (4 drives) |
56
|
56**
|
| Powerbook G3 500 MHz, 384MB |
11
|
n/a
|
| D-Link Gigabit switch (4 ports, older model) |
8.2
|
n/a
|
| D-Link Gigabit switch (8 ports) |
6.8
|
n/a
|
| ADSL Router |
6.0
|
n/a
|
| 50 watt Solux lamp (with transformer) |
59
|
n/a
|
| Dual 2.4GHz Opteron system, 2GB RAM, 2 X 36GB Raptor drives, basic video card, firewire card |
180
|
2.5 (off)
|
(1) supports two 30" monitors, occupies two slots
*power usage depends on screen content
** does not sleep; drives and fans won’t sleep
Ever wonder what Apple’s Processor performance setting costs in terms of power usage? Setting it to Highest consumes another 50 watts (while idle). Automatic seems to be the best choice, since setting it to Highest didn’t make any of the benchmarks I ran go any faster, and saving 50 watts keeps everthing inside the PowerMac that much cooler.
A system consisting of the PowerMac, 30" and 24" screens, the Firewire 800 and FirmTek drives measures at 450 watts while idle. Running a test program that fully utilizes both CPUs ups the system power usage to 585 watts.