Intense PC Pro (i7)- CPU power 30W??

csimon
Posts: 38
Joined: Wed Feb 13, 2013 3:07 pm

Re: Intense PC Pro (i7)- CPU power 30W??

Post by csimon »

Aye, but these figures aren't being measured at the wall, they're from CPU monitoring programs.

Look at my first screen grab above. The machine is idling. Turbo boost isn't kicking in, the processor frequency is down to 800MHz, but the Processor power is 30W.

How did you manage to get an absolute max of 26W while the system is under full load when we seem to be getting 30W while idling? What monitoring program were you using?

[EDIT] From the description of the machine on your web site, the power consumption is 10W - 26W (depending on system load). Since the rated power of the CPU is 17W, I assumed this meant that all the additional system components would add up to around 10W (although I do realise it depends onthe RAM and disk that are installed), with the CPU going from 1W to 17W, making a range of 11W - 27W, which ties in nicely with the stated specs. But it looks like the non-core components of the CPU have a minimum of 30W overhead, not to mention all the other components. This ties in with my observation of putting the CPU under load and finding power of 47W (30W + 17W). Therefore to state that the max power consumption of this machine is 26W is very misleading. Do you actually mean the power consumption of the core on its own, i.e. rated spec of 17W and under Turbo Boost it can go to 26W?

irads

Re: Intense PC Pro (i7)- CPU power 30W??

Post by irads »

I don't find SW CPU power monitors to be trustworthy. I prefer measuring DC current between the PSU and the computer.
26W is measured on a factory configured Intense PC running memtest at 100% CPU load. 10W is measured on the same PC idling in Windows.
The system can be easily configured and loaded to higher power - for example each USB port can supply 5W. Therefore searching for the system absolute max power consumption might be elusive.

colllectivetrader
Posts: 2
Joined: Thu Jun 13, 2013 8:46 pm

Re: Intense PC Pro (i7)- CPU power 30W??

Post by colllectivetrader »

I agree with Irads that the SW measurement tools are not ok.
I needed to know before I let my new IntensePC run 24/7 so I went out and bought a power plug with build-in power consumption meter (which measures at the wall socket) and tested it all night yesterday.
Again, my system is Intense-PC i7/16GB RAM/256GB SSD/Win7. Wireless is disabled in Windows (don't know if that actually shuts down the hardware). The system was only connected on HDMI, no USB ports on it.

I got 13.5W idle. I had a remote sessions to it with Splashtop streamer and was running Spotify music all the time for about 5 hours. The load never exceeded 18.5W which can be considered normal because just running 2 Apps doesn't really present much of a challenge in terms of CPU load.

Once I plug in a USB device, indeed I get to see an increase of 5W easily. So, I don't keep any USB devices on it (I never intended this in the first place because HTPC keyboard/mice usually suck.

With 13.5W idle, this means running the box 24/7 will cost me about 70 EUR per year which I can live with knowing the extra functionality this will ultimately bring me when I'm through with fully configuring this box (HTPC, home automation interface & control, monitoring, etc...)

Walter

csimon
Posts: 38
Joined: Wed Feb 13, 2013 3:07 pm

Re: Intense PC Pro (i7)- CPU power 30W??

Post by csimon »

Thats very good to know, thank you for doing that test! Was going to get a wall socket thing myself.

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