I am currently trying to in work a PC into my car, and I need to conserve every watt I possibly can (trying to use a DC to DC power supply to avoid losing power from inverting and converting DC->AC->DC). I think there are some limitations right now with the amount of power you can draw from a DC current in a car, and I need to keep my wattage below a certain threshold. Thanks to this review I can base my computer purchasing decisions for my car with some information in hand. Thanks again, Anandtech.
Why didn't you include the idle power consumption. Most computers are running idle far longer than actually doing something. It seems that the most important peice of info is left out of this test.
I was just going to close down the site after briefly looking at some of the graphs.
But came here first to check and post comments.
This information is pretty useless to me, but atleast a corporation 'may' benefit. Although I don't think corporations buy computer parts with a few watts power draw as the governing factor, unless the IT group has really lost it's way.
As far as Anandtech articles go, testing power draw would be more beneficial practical if showing differences between Core 2 Duo and Athlon X2 platforms. Also between GPU's ATI vs NVIDIA, current gen vs. last gen, etc. now that could be fairly interesting and would likely show a difference that actually means something.
This one was a sleeper for me. I think the idea of testing power draw is sound, just that the focus of testing, in this case, wasn't worth the time. Maybe next time.
Chipset power started to really matter the moment NB power got above 10W period.
The problem is heated chipset means more heat in case, less life for board, bigger problem to cool it down => active cooling => lower long-term stability ...
Is it 3W or 6W ? I don't care.
Is it 6W or 15W? That 15W variant is off the table even before I look after the features.
Too bad they didn't include ASUS' new http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?Pr...">P5N32-SLI Premium/WiFi-AP nForce 590 SLI Intel Edition board. That's a board I'm considering for a third system. Right now we have two P5W DH Deluxe boards.
I'd like to see the results from a Intel 945G motherboard test as I heard it will support the Core 2 processor line. Unfortunately though I have a Gateway proprietary 945G board (codename Big Lake) but still built by Intel. So I'm more interested in compatibility rather than power consumption. Currently have a Pentium D, though I like the sound of the Core 2's.
Really, charts are great when you've got a half dozen video cards in a roundup and the results are different in each test. But in this case the results are essentially the same in every test: high, middle, low. It would have been a lot more efficient to present these in a table. Red for high, blue for low. All the results fit on one page.
Anandtech has never done an article that pitted the 865, 875 and 570 head to head on a Core 2. Sure there have been old reviews with both the intel chipssets with P4s but those were long ago and the performance may not be the same with the Core 2.
Glad to see some benchmarks finally. Maybe I am crazy but this is the only hardware site I visit and I have been disapointed that you were lacking head to head chipset benchmarks when the Core 2 has been out for several months already.
This is no way to measure chipset power consumption. Two deluxe boards with 8-phase power versus one mainstream board with a mediocre 3-phase power system.
The gains in 8-phase vs. 3-phase is enough to explain the difference we're seeing here.
Perhaps measuring the generated heat of each chipset could tell us something, but this is useless.
quote: This is no way to measure chipset power consumption. Two deluxe boards with 8-phase power versus one mainstream board with a mediocre 3-phase power system.
The gains in 8-phase vs. 3-phase is enough to explain the difference we're seeing here.
Perhaps measuring the generated heat of each chipset could tell us something, but this is useless.
Interesting quote:
One interesting thing that somewhat suprised me when testing K8 and P4 boards. P4 chipsets actually consume the least amount of power. VIA chipsets which have two chips besides the integrated northbridge come a very close second, but most surprisingly, Nvidia nForce 3 chipset, with its one sole chip beside the integrated northbridge, actually consumes a whole lot more than all the others. Especially on boards which use linear regulators to feed the northbridge. My own Chaintech VNF3-250 with a low power videocard consumes almost 50% more from the 3.3V rail than Intel branded i865 board with integrated video (which consumed 10W from 3.3V rail using a single 512MB DS stick). MSI branded KM800 board with integrated video came very close to Intel board though (also with a single 512MB DS stick).
Don't get me wrong, I prefer intel chipsets by far. I'd especially like to get my hands on the P965.
BUT!
As it says in your quote: "linear power regulators". Those that just waste whatever voltage difference there is are by far the cheapest. So would it be surprising to find such regulators on a motherboard that is half as expensive (give or take) than the other two? I think not.
the onboard power regulation and conditioning is very important, and will become ever more important with lower and lower chip voltages, as the current increases.
quote: Don't get me wrong, I prefer intel chipsets by far. I'd especially like to get my hands on the P965.
BUT!
As it says in your quote: "linear power regulators". Those that just waste whatever voltage difference there is are by far the cheapest. So would it be surprising to find such regulators on a motherboard that is half as expensive (give or take) than the other two? I think not.
the onboard power regulation and conditioning is very important, and will become ever more important with lower and lower chip voltages, as the current increases.
Though they should really check the voltage of the cpu with a multimeter. There is an uncertainty on the voltage to the cpu, that could easily make up the 5 or so watts
With Nforce 570 SLI board included. Asus P5NSLI with Nforce 570 is 3-phase, and the P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe with Nforce 4 SLI chipset is 8-phase, but the Nforce 4 version consumes more power. I guess 3 and 8 phases aren't that big of a difference. The Gigabyte version mentions Quad Triple Phase with "virtual 12-phase" but the Foxconn with 3-phase(http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/05/22/six_975x_en...">http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/05/22/...ds_for_t... manages to achieve the lowest power consumption too. What's up with that?? I guess its because Intel chipsets do consume less power, and Nvidia's consume a lot in general.
Isn't it also strange how nobody else but Intel documents their chipsets so detailed?? I can't find ANYTHING in Nvidia/Via/ATI/SIS site for their chipsets other than the "product brief/overview etc".
Im sorry guys but this is lame. I usually love your articles but this one is useless to me. I mean we are talking maybe 8% difference between chipsets? Thats almost margin of error. Besides, its not like we are talking 300W per chipset here.
10 watts diffrence just from chipsets is quite a lot IMHO, its about as much as a harddisk, and can be a real considiration in a quiet and/or low-power setup (combinde with cooling soution of course).
Your data and graphs are misleading. You have 1 part in 1000 information you have logged on performance and power. When you have a ratio, that ratio is still accurate to 1 part in 1000. Instead, you truncate the graphics to 1 part in 100, and lots of things look the same. This is wrong!
also , i think u should have used more minimalistic boards... otherwise the power could be drained on the additional features like wifi or a 2nd nic card or whathaveyou
It's interesting to see the diffrent between chipsets. The chipsets seems to have started t use quite a bit of power. Hopefully you will be able to do more detailed test some time in the futire, load on diffrent rails and so on.
You'd need to test the power consumption of multiple brands of motherboard using the same chipset. This could just be an Asus thing. (After all, the Intel chipset boards are "Deluxe" while the nVidia chipset board isn't. Maybe they actually spent engineering efford to cut down on power draw on the Deluxe boards.)
Also, for a review interested in power consumption, I'd like to see comparisons not just with a dedicated video card, but also with the integrated video of appropriate chipsets. For example, I play almost no games, and actually WOULD like to save as much energy as possible. What motherboard/CPU/GPU combo will give me the best media encoding performance bang per watt? (A Via nano ITX board probably would win in performance per watt, but with unacceptably low performance.)
All this tells me is that Asus's P965 mobo uses less than their 975X and 570 SLI mobos. It'd be better to compare across brands (using the same chipsets available from each brand.) Then you verify your result.
Me too. Most computers, especially the ones that are running 24/7 (which is more and more prevalent today), are idle for a guesstimate of about 90% of the time. Really.
I was disappointed in this article as well, because they really should've taken that into regard (and made it the most important thing as well).
No, I am interested as well. My computer is kept in a relatively enclosed space. My P4 used to be completely quiet before this, and now is loud b/c the fans are spinning a lot faster. Of course I am not looking to keep the P4, but I am planning on upgrading soon. This basically let me know what I wanted to know and it becomes a no brainer in chipset choice for my application. Here I can get the less expensive chipset and still save on power. I am carefully choosing all of my components for my next build. I want as much integrated as possible and do things like have only 1 optical drive and go down from 3 HDD to 2 etc. (And of course get a cpu that uses less power.) Now for the person who said that a few watt doesn't mean anything, if you get a few watts out of 5 coponents that is a significant power savings for the system as a whole.
The days of ATI building chipsets for Intel CPUs may be numbered, but I'd be interested in seeing how their current offerings compare to nVidia and Intel.
Also, how does integrated graphics change the power equation?
quote: The power consumption aspect is obviously only one part of the decision to go with a particular chipset
I would never consider power consumption in choosing a chipset. Two or three watts of pwer consumption isn't even worth spending any time considering imho.
yeah the same to me, I think for the average user power consumption of a chipset will never be a primary criteria when buying a new MB/platform. For the enterprise/business customers..that's another matter. These mbs here in the test were for the average user though.. I don't see what's with all the fuzz on performance per watt(power consumption) issue lately, at least when the differences are so minor..
I'm looking forward to a thoroughly investigation on core 2 duo platforms..till then, keep up with the good work Anand..you are still my best:)
Yep, don't care about power consumption of the chipset. Also, if you're looking at business machines for 10,000+ users, you aren't going the custom build route as the costs to build aren't worth the savings on parts. You're going to go with a canned solution and most of those machines have low power draws anyways (no fans, low wattage power supplies, bare bones components).
Guys if you don't care about chipset power draw then why bother reading the article (assuming you even did) and why even bother replying to the forum?!? Sheesh.
Dells and HPs (canned solutions) also use those chipsets. There are "canned" workstations also, for CAD work for example. They are not barebones, although cheap components could be used.
Low wattage PSUs do not translate in lower consumption. A 500W rated 80% at 100W consumes the same as a 300W rated 80% at 100W. Most likely the canned PSU will be a cheaper one and consume more.
Corporate purchases are Global Sourced and they go for the cheapest. No corporate buyer will pay a cent more on every computer to have an Enermax PSU, for example.
Except that a large corporation wouldnt be using this type of otherboard most likely to begin with.
I have to agree with the OP, in that a few WATTS is no big deal here, however, CPU / GPU power usage can be, and often is.
I know that one thing is for sure, IF I ever use SLI, its going to be a mid ranged card that uses much less power, as I dont feel that 1 KW is nessisary for hight end PC (which is how much future PCs are going to be needing at this rate).
In a COLD country making little use of air conditioning, the excess power consumption from pcs would actually warm up the office and SAVE MONEY AND ENERGY in building heating costs. Also the electricity might be nuclear or green, whereas the building heating is more likely oil or gas (fossil fuels being depleted making green house gases and co2).
If you live in say Texas or the Sahara desert, it would of course increase your aircon costs.
Anyway I was interested in how the 590 chipset performed against 570 in power consumption.
Whoops. Intuitive logic doesn't always pay off. See the following chart which gives energy costs/BTU for 2006: http://www.npga.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=914">DOE Energy Costs . You can see that energy cost from electricity is almost double that of natural gas. You may help heat the building, but it will cost you more. And remember that a lot of electricity comes from coal fired power plants (CO2 producing) and every wire consumes it's own share of energy released as useless heat. Ok probably too much off the chipset topic, sorry.
Could you measure the power draw of just the chipset by increasing the voltage of the northbridge by 0.2V and then re-running the tests? Take the difference between +0.2V and normal and then you would have isolated the power draw for the chipset and can work out the power draw for the chipset alone.
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44 Comments
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PotatoMAN - Friday, December 29, 2006 - link
I am currently trying to in work a PC into my car, and I need to conserve every watt I possibly can (trying to use a DC to DC power supply to avoid losing power from inverting and converting DC->AC->DC). I think there are some limitations right now with the amount of power you can draw from a DC current in a car, and I need to keep my wattage below a certain threshold. Thanks to this review I can base my computer purchasing decisions for my car with some information in hand. Thanks again, Anandtech.Stomper88 - Monday, October 16, 2006 - link
Please post idle wattage as well. My computers sit there at idle much longer than any other state.rkhpedersen - Friday, October 13, 2006 - link
Why didn't you include the idle power consumption. Most computers are running idle far longer than actually doing something. It seems that the most important peice of info is left out of this test.mino - Friday, October 13, 2006 - link
Second that.Please add that chart, these are 3 numbers so it shouldn't be a problem provided you want to add it.
MadBoris - Friday, October 13, 2006 - link
I was just going to close down the site after briefly looking at some of the graphs.But came here first to check and post comments.
This information is pretty useless to me, but atleast a corporation 'may' benefit. Although I don't think corporations buy computer parts with a few watts power draw as the governing factor, unless the IT group has really lost it's way.
As far as Anandtech articles go, testing power draw would be more beneficial practical if showing differences between Core 2 Duo and Athlon X2 platforms. Also between GPU's ATI vs NVIDIA, current gen vs. last gen, etc. now that could be fairly interesting and would likely show a difference that actually means something.
This one was a sleeper for me. I think the idea of testing power draw is sound, just that the focus of testing, in this case, wasn't worth the time. Maybe next time.
mino - Friday, October 13, 2006 - link
Well, maybe we have lost our way ..Chipset power started to really matter the moment NB power got above 10W period.
The problem is heated chipset means more heat in case, less life for board, bigger problem to cool it down => active cooling => lower long-term stability ...
Is it 3W or 6W ? I don't care.
Is it 6W or 15W? That 15W variant is off the table even before I look after the features.
BPB - Friday, October 13, 2006 - link
Too bad they didn't include ASUS' new http://www.zipzoomfly.com/jsp/ProductDetail.jsp?Pr...">P5N32-SLI Premium/WiFi-AP nForce 590 SLI Intel Edition board. That's a board I'm considering for a third system. Right now we have two P5W DH Deluxe boards.Askari77 - Friday, October 13, 2006 - link
I'd like to see the results from a Intel 945G motherboard test as I heard it will support the Core 2 processor line. Unfortunately though I have a Gateway proprietary 945G board (codename Big Lake) but still built by Intel. So I'm more interested in compatibility rather than power consumption. Currently have a Pentium D, though I like the sound of the Core 2's.peldor - Friday, October 13, 2006 - link
Really, charts are great when you've got a half dozen video cards in a roundup and the results are different in each test. But in this case the results are essentially the same in every test: high, middle, low. It would have been a lot more efficient to present these in a table. Red for high, blue for low. All the results fit on one page.Staples - Friday, October 13, 2006 - link
Anandtech has never done an article that pitted the 865, 875 and 570 head to head on a Core 2. Sure there have been old reviews with both the intel chipssets with P4s but those were long ago and the performance may not be the same with the Core 2.Glad to see some benchmarks finally. Maybe I am crazy but this is the only hardware site I visit and I have been disapointed that you were lacking head to head chipset benchmarks when the Core 2 has been out for several months already.
GPz1100 - Friday, October 13, 2006 - link
The test in theory would be beneficial, but the article doesn't state exactly how or what was really measured.Not a very useful test then, flawed from the get go.
Plantemanden - Thursday, October 12, 2006 - link
This is no way to measure chipset power consumption. Two deluxe boards with 8-phase power versus one mainstream board with a mediocre 3-phase power system.The gains in 8-phase vs. 3-phase is enough to explain the difference we're seeing here.
Perhaps measuring the generated heat of each chipset could tell us something, but this is useless.
IntelUser2000 - Thursday, October 12, 2006 - link
Perhaps little component difference can make it up, but I doubt it. I've seen other power consumption benchmark which show that Intel chipsets consume the least power: http://www.goodwin.ee/sulo/Power2.htm">http://www.goodwin.ee/sulo/Power2.htm
Interesting quote:
One interesting thing that somewhat suprised me when testing K8 and P4 boards. P4 chipsets actually consume the least amount of power. VIA chipsets which have two chips besides the integrated northbridge come a very close second, but most surprisingly, Nvidia nForce 3 chipset, with its one sole chip beside the integrated northbridge, actually consumes a whole lot more than all the others. Especially on boards which use linear regulators to feed the northbridge. My own Chaintech VNF3-250 with a low power videocard consumes almost 50% more from the 3.3V rail than Intel branded i865 board with integrated video (which consumed 10W from 3.3V rail using a single 512MB DS stick). MSI branded KM800 board with integrated video came very close to Intel board though (also with a single 512MB DS stick).
Plantemanden - Thursday, October 12, 2006 - link
Don't get me wrong, I prefer intel chipsets by far. I'd especially like to get my hands on the P965.BUT!
As it says in your quote: "linear power regulators". Those that just waste whatever voltage difference there is are by far the cheapest. So would it be surprising to find such regulators on a motherboard that is half as expensive (give or take) than the other two? I think not.
the onboard power regulation and conditioning is very important, and will become ever more important with lower and lower chip voltages, as the current increases.
IntelUser2000 - Friday, October 13, 2006 - link
http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2006q3/core2-chi...">http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2006q3/core2-chi...
Awesome, but take a look above again. Nforce 570 SLI, is lower power than Nforce 4 SLI, which is still higher than P965 and 975X.
http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2006q2/am2-chips...">http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2006q2/am2-chips...
Not only that, we see Nvidia's chipset just suck in terms of power consumption.
Plantemanden - Saturday, October 14, 2006 - link
Yeah, perhaps you're right.Though they should really check the voltage of the cpu with a multimeter. There is an uncertainty on the voltage to the cpu, that could easily make up the 5 or so watts
IntelUser2000 - Friday, October 13, 2006 - link
Look at this: http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=c2d...">http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=c2d...P5B is even lower than P5B Deluxe
Then this:
http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2006q3/foxconn-g...">http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2006q3/foxconn-g...
Looks like other P965 chipset boards can do even better than P5B.
http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2006q3/core2-chi...">http://www.techreport.com/reviews/2006q3/core2-chi...
With Nforce 570 SLI board included. Asus P5NSLI with Nforce 570 is 3-phase, and the P5N32-SLI SE Deluxe with Nforce 4 SLI chipset is 8-phase, but the Nforce 4 version consumes more power. I guess 3 and 8 phases aren't that big of a difference. The Gigabyte version mentions Quad Triple Phase with "virtual 12-phase" but the Foxconn with 3-phase(http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/05/22/six_975x_en...">http://www.tomshardware.com/2006/05/22/...ds_for_t... manages to achieve the lowest power consumption too. What's up with that?? I guess its because Intel chipsets do consume less power, and Nvidia's consume a lot in general.
Isn't it also strange how nobody else but Intel documents their chipsets so detailed?? I can't find ANYTHING in Nvidia/Via/ATI/SIS site for their chipsets other than the "product brief/overview etc".
daos - Thursday, October 12, 2006 - link
Im sorry guys but this is lame. I usually love your articles but this one is useless to me. I mean we are talking maybe 8% difference between chipsets? Thats almost margin of error. Besides, its not like we are talking 300W per chipset here.I guess I was expecting more.
Thanks
ATWindsor - Friday, October 13, 2006 - link
10 watts diffrence just from chipsets is quite a lot IMHO, its about as much as a harddisk, and can be a real considiration in a quiet and/or low-power setup (combinde with cooling soution of course).raymo - Thursday, October 12, 2006 - link
Your data and graphs are misleading. You have 1 part in 1000 information you have logged on performance and power. When you have a ratio, that ratio is still accurate to 1 part in 1000. Instead, you truncate the graphics to 1 part in 100, and lots of things look the same. This is wrong!wwswimming - Thursday, October 12, 2006 - link
3 of the best Motherboards you can get, all i think with the extra-stable 8 phase power - and you have 'em all in one line-up.
Can i work at Anandtech ? :-)
8steve8 - Thursday, October 12, 2006 - link
(even when disabled these parts likely take some power)8steve8 - Thursday, October 12, 2006 - link
im curious, what about g965 with onboard video...also , i think u should have used more minimalistic boards... otherwise the power could be drained on the additional features like wifi or a 2nd nic card or whathaveyou
ATWindsor - Thursday, October 12, 2006 - link
It's interesting to see the diffrent between chipsets. The chipsets seems to have started t use quite a bit of power. Hopefully you will be able to do more detailed test some time in the futire, load on diffrent rails and so on.Lonyo - Thursday, October 12, 2006 - link
The HL2 640x480 numbers for the 975 look really wrong (198 fps vs ~230 for the other 2 chipsets).Anonymous Freak - Thursday, October 12, 2006 - link
You'd need to test the power consumption of multiple brands of motherboard using the same chipset. This could just be an Asus thing. (After all, the Intel chipset boards are "Deluxe" while the nVidia chipset board isn't. Maybe they actually spent engineering efford to cut down on power draw on the Deluxe boards.)Also, for a review interested in power consumption, I'd like to see comparisons not just with a dedicated video card, but also with the integrated video of appropriate chipsets. For example, I play almost no games, and actually WOULD like to save as much energy as possible. What motherboard/CPU/GPU combo will give me the best media encoding performance bang per watt? (A Via nano ITX board probably would win in performance per watt, but with unacceptably low performance.)
edwardhchan - Thursday, October 12, 2006 - link
All this tells me is that Asus's P965 mobo uses less than their 975X and 570 SLI mobos. It'd be better to compare across brands (using the same chipsets available from each brand.) Then you verify your result.atenza - Thursday, October 12, 2006 - link
Am I the only one interested in idle consumption of those systems?mongo lloyd - Friday, October 13, 2006 - link
Me too. Most computers, especially the ones that are running 24/7 (which is more and more prevalent today), are idle for a guesstimate of about 90% of the time. Really.I was disappointed in this article as well, because they really should've taken that into regard (and made it the most important thing as well).
SocrPlyr - Thursday, October 12, 2006 - link
No, I am interested as well. My computer is kept in a relatively enclosed space. My P4 used to be completely quiet before this, and now is loud b/c the fans are spinning a lot faster. Of course I am not looking to keep the P4, but I am planning on upgrading soon. This basically let me know what I wanted to know and it becomes a no brainer in chipset choice for my application. Here I can get the less expensive chipset and still save on power. I am carefully choosing all of my components for my next build. I want as much integrated as possible and do things like have only 1 optical drive and go down from 3 HDD to 2 etc. (And of course get a cpu that uses less power.) Now for the person who said that a few watt doesn't mean anything, if you get a few watts out of 5 coponents that is a significant power savings for the system as a whole.Josh
Magendanz - Thursday, October 12, 2006 - link
The days of ATI building chipsets for Intel CPUs may be numbered, but I'd be interested in seeing how their current offerings compare to nVidia and Intel.Also, how does integrated graphics change the power equation?
Questar - Thursday, October 12, 2006 - link
I would never consider power consumption in choosing a chipset. Two or three watts of pwer consumption isn't even worth spending any time considering imho.
falc0ne - Saturday, October 14, 2006 - link
yeah the same to me, I think for the average user power consumption of a chipset will never be a primary criteria when buying a new MB/platform. For the enterprise/business customers..that's another matter. These mbs here in the test were for the average user though.. I don't see what's with all the fuzz on performance per watt(power consumption) issue lately, at least when the differences are so minor..I'm looking forward to a thoroughly investigation on core 2 duo platforms..till then, keep up with the good work Anand..you are still my best:)
smilingcrow - Saturday, October 14, 2006 - link
For those wanting power consumption data on older chipsets that support C2D, which also includes consumption at idle, http://forums.silentpcreview.com/viewtopic.php?t=3...">See herehubajube - Thursday, October 12, 2006 - link
Yep, don't care about power consumption of the chipset. Also, if you're looking at business machines for 10,000+ users, you aren't going the custom build route as the costs to build aren't worth the savings on parts. You're going to go with a canned solution and most of those machines have low power draws anyways (no fans, low wattage power supplies, bare bones components).phusg - Friday, October 13, 2006 - link
Guys if you don't care about chipset power draw then why bother reading the article (assuming you even did) and why even bother replying to the forum?!? Sheesh.Madellga - Friday, October 13, 2006 - link
Dells and HPs (canned solutions) also use those chipsets. There are "canned" workstations also, for CAD work for example. They are not barebones, although cheap components could be used.Low wattage PSUs do not translate in lower consumption. A 500W rated 80% at 100W consumes the same as a 300W rated 80% at 100W. Most likely the canned PSU will be a cheaper one and consume more.
Corporate purchases are Global Sourced and they go for the cheapest. No corporate buyer will pay a cent more on every computer to have an Enermax PSU, for example.
Madellga - Thursday, October 12, 2006 - link
Wrong. Can you imagine in a office?In a large corporation, or gov. office, that has more than 10000 computers.
That's a lot of money.
If you think worldwide, that's a lot of energy. You don't pay this out of your pocket, nevertheless it is money wasted that could go somewhere else.
In the long run, it's also contributing to Global Warming and other pesky effects.
yyrkoon - Friday, October 13, 2006 - link
Except that a large corporation wouldnt be using this type of otherboard most likely to begin with.I have to agree with the OP, in that a few WATTS is no big deal here, however, CPU / GPU power usage can be, and often is.
I know that one thing is for sure, IF I ever use SLI, its going to be a mid ranged card that uses much less power, as I dont feel that 1 KW is nessisary for hight end PC (which is how much future PCs are going to be needing at this rate).
peternelson - Friday, October 13, 2006 - link
In a COLD country making little use of air conditioning, the excess power consumption from pcs would actually warm up the office and SAVE MONEY AND ENERGY in building heating costs. Also the electricity might be nuclear or green, whereas the building heating is more likely oil or gas (fossil fuels being depleted making green house gases and co2).
If you live in say Texas or the Sahara desert, it would of course increase your aircon costs.
Anyway I was interested in how the 590 chipset performed against 570 in power consumption.
jonp - Saturday, October 14, 2006 - link
Whoops. Intuitive logic doesn't always pay off. See the following chart which gives energy costs/BTU for 2006: http://www.npga.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=914">DOE Energy Costs . You can see that energy cost from electricity is almost double that of natural gas. You may help heat the building, but it will cost you more. And remember that a lot of electricity comes from coal fired power plants (CO2 producing) and every wire consumes it's own share of energy released as useless heat. Ok probably too much off the chipset topic, sorry.DigitalFreak - Thursday, October 12, 2006 - link
Quick, call Al Gore!Thanks for the good laugh.
Lonyo - Thursday, October 12, 2006 - link
10w is not all that inconsiderable, look at it over multiple components and it becomes significant.10w just for the mobo is, IMO, quite a chunk.
smn198 - Friday, October 13, 2006 - link
Could you measure the power draw of just the chipset by increasing the voltage of the northbridge by 0.2V and then re-running the tests? Take the difference between +0.2V and normal and then you would have isolated the power draw for the chipset and can work out the power draw for the chipset alone.