I used iStat menus. It reads power consumption from the system somehow, though...


No idea. I'm just using software that claims to be querying the monitoring hardware, instead of using an external device to confirm. FBDIMM modules I have heard are pretty power hungry though even when idle. The newer Mac Pros should do better having DDR3 modules in them.

This support page at Apple seems to confirm my numbers appear normal. I can't find similar numbers from Dell on the quad processor XPS boxes we have at the office to compare though.

That reminded me I do have one of these, it was attached to my UPS. Good job I you reminded me as I discovered my UPS cells have failed. When I pulled the plug the whole shebang went off!

I was quite surprised by these results. All on my Quad 2009 2.66 only difference from stock is I have a 1Tb Samsung Spinpoint F1 in bay 2...

Turned off but plugged in - 12w
Idle at desktop - 138w
Single Core at max - 163w
8 HT Cores at max - 252w
Standby (sleep) - 18w

All higher than I guessed. What surprises me most is when I look at my workstation as a whole here. With everything on standby I am running at 103w, and with everything powered on and running at max I am at 502w !!!! Gotta do something about that, this isn't the only computer I have in the house either, I have another 2 one all the time and a PC that's in standby most of the time. I have one of those extension leads that cuts off the other 5 sockets when the computer is in standby, time to dig it out!

Cheers

Cris.

PS - Anyone know where a good place to get replacement cells for a Belkin UPS is?

Core2Quad E6600 - 2.4Ghz, 1x750GB SATA, 4GB DDR2-800,
Nvidia 7200TC, 2 x Marvell SATA add-on boards (no drives).

ASUS Workstation/Server board with tons of PCIe, PCI-X,
and PCI slots, built-in everything (except graphics), etc..

0.925 amps @120VAC = approximately 111W, idle at the KDE3 desktop.

-ml

Thanks for the assistance and the input folks.

Sadly, some things have been going on (indeed, since I posted this thread - sadly some things can happen very quickly) that make it a bit unfeasible to attempt to learn a completely new OS. The financial aspects of going with a Mac don't help the cause either.

I've priced out what it would cost to upgrade my old computer to a nice Core i7 system, and it comes out to about $800.

I recognize that a good amount of the "Apple Tax" goes towards excellent quality, but I just can't afford it right now, when I'm trying to get the best value I can.

I'm currently seeing how good a workflow I can put together using Sony Vegas, and so far I've been quite pleased. It imports the unusual MJPEG video files from my Canon TX1 without a hitch, and the UI is pretty good. If I get confident that I can live with this software, I might go ahead with the upgrade. I've got a fantastic case (Lian-Li PC-75) that's been sitting unused for too long

Oh dear

I can't decide how sad that is (busy at work? lost job? brain tumor?), but I've just gotta know the story behind making it unfeasible to learn something new.

Sorry to hear that.

Of course if money wasn't a problem I would suggest buying the Mac and then just running XP on Parrallels (or something similar) from within OS X

Cheers

Cris.

I just plugged my UPS into my Kill A Watt to join in the fun.

Computers off, Drobo in standby, two 19" LCDs in standby = ~42 Watts

Dell 530S with Core 2 Duo 2200 (2.2GHz) at idle, but Drobo accessing = 200 Watts
Both cores pegged at 100% and Drobo accessing = 237 Watts
Both cores pegged and PowerMac G4 1.0GHz turned on at idle = 304 Watts

Turning the monitors off results in a power consumption drop of 30 Watts each.

Is is possible the G4 with two hard drives powered up only consumes 67 Watts, or is it more likely the Kill A Watt isn't very accurate?

I'm actually pleased with these results since the Dell box and drobo stay on 24/7. 200 Watts is less than I expected.

The G4 systems were pretty power efficient, especially when compared against the chips Intel was shipping back in the same time frame. So 67 Watts at idle doesn't seem too odd.

Yeah, 64W is more like the range I would expect for a moderately efficient desktop machine.

Cheers

Here's a GEM from Steve Ballmer:



This is what key executives at other companies don't get as their margins and market share slide. And even when the hardware's price is too much to bear for some people, they still choose to take cheaper hardware and hack at it to install a different OS.

if Ballmer wanted to compare dollars and cents, he should probably look into the pricing of their OEM and Vista packs.

Let's check back in same time next year Steve.

Yeah, but 90% of the time, Microsoft's getting paid for a license anyway, even if it's never used.

Apple has always (or, at least since the candy-colored iMacs) positioned itself as a premium / fashion choice. The Apple premium has always been there, but it's less and less these days.

The big annoyance is that Apple doesn't have a real "gamer PC". If you want a big desktop with the option for a crazy graphics card, then you're forced to get the Nehalem server-class chipset, with its multi-socket support, ECC memory, and so forth.

Likewise, Apple isn't (yet?) competing in the netbook segment, leading to most of the Hackintosh activity there. The zillion dollar question is whether Pystar or other such companies will succeed at selling "Apple-compatible" clones.

All the duct tape and cardboard in the word isn't going to make a 1995 Ford Taurus into a 2009 BMW.

All true, but the margins on all other PCs have narrowed as well, so relatively there's little difference.

The initial iMacs didn't carry a price premium, and it was actually one of the products that helped push PC prices lower. I worked at Gateway at the time, and it panicked a lot of people when it came out. It had a nice simple design, offered what consumers wanted, and was cheeper then what Gateway, HP, Compaq, and Dell were all selling at the time. The all in one system Gateway had at the time (Profile) was more the premium/fashion statement device, with very expensive for the time components like an LCD. The engineers rushed to clone the iMac in the form of the Astro, as did other companies.

If anything, the iMac was the product that began the transformation at Apple away from the premium priced products it has been churning out in the early to mid 90s.

Nice story about the "Apple Tax". Quick summary: When compared spec for spec, and ignoring the operating system as an advantage or disadvantage, Apple hardware is reasonable in the markets Apple competes in. However, Apple doesn't fill all the markets other PC makers do, leaving people to think there is a tax.

It seems that new MS ad is stirring a lot of this stuff up again. It's at least making a point unlike the Seinfeld ads.

MS is doing the same thing that Hyundai and Toyota do when they compare their cars against BMW.

I'd argue that a Hyundai is closer to a BMW (jn every way, including quality) than a typical Windows system is to any Mac though.

I would say the x301 / air kinda proves the no apple tax point but I think the x301 is better hardware wise at least. (I'm staying out of the osx vs windows holy war)

Late to the party, but Maplin were knocking out mains wattmeters for £8, and I'd always wondered what my always-on media server (VIA Epia PD, 600MHz C3, two 3.5in drives, full-size CDROM) consumed. And the answers are:

Plugged in but switched off: 5W
Peak current, switch-on (spinup both drives): 88W
Steady full load (rip+encode+record DVB): 75W
CPU busy, drives spun-up but idle: 62W
Idle, both drives spun-up: 58W
Idle, both drives spun-down: 45W
Idle, both drives spun-down, CPU@400MHz: still 45W (i.e., on-demand CPU governor makes no detectable difference)

Frankly, that's more than I was expecting; perhaps the (200W?) PSU isn't very efficient at that low load. Maybe I should get one of these.

Peter

That's brilliant. Now I want to build a system around that, just for the sake of doing it.

I have 2 Micro-ATX machines that I used to run them on, I went back to a more traditional fanless PSU solution when I started getting strange problems with the system halting all the time.

I think it was a heat problem of some kind, I also found they really stressed the external 12v PSU bricks I was using at the time. I wouldn't use them again myself, but the machines I am using are pretty much sealed 1U rackmount servers and I think that type of PSU needs a little more venting than I had available.

Cheers

Cris.

This is the EPIA mobo with PicoPSU (yellow and red bits) that runs our rtr.ca cookie-tin server here.

And a close-up crop of just the PicoPSU part.

Is the electrolytic cap just below that Pico PSU board swollen? Perhaps it's just a trick of the light but it looks bad in both photos.

The two photos are actually just a single photo.

But thanks for pointing out the cap.. I'll try and have a looksee later on.

Thanks.

Okay, I had a look into the cookie-tin just now.

Yup, that particular capacitor is bulging quite a bit on top, as are about four similar ones of the same brand elsewhere in there.

I wonder how much longer I can ignore them?

-ml

I guess it depends on what kind of damage will be caused by their failure...