Power consumption, best case scenario for modern build.

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helloha

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I'm looking to build a new system. I might use older hardware as it's cheaper, but I recently got myself a kill-a-watt meter and noticed that my system currently draws 450 watt on idle.

This is an X8 system with one xeon L5630, 48gb of ddr3 ram and 16x 7200 rpm drives.

I was wondering what the power consumption would be like on a new x10 system for example. Would there be much difference with a new system that has similar performance?

My current setup at 450 watt costs me about €22 per month in electricity, given the fact I turn it off at night. Always on would be in the neighborhood of €50/month.

Many Thanks!
K.
 

ChriZ

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I think that with those 16 7200 RPM drives, even with a newer system you won't see much difference..
You would gain some from the better idle consumption of a newer CPU ( but the L5630 is a 40w TDP CPU anyways) and from using larger DIMMS , e.g. 2x32GB instead of 6x8 or 12x4, but you have to factor the cost of the new components and find out if the ROI is worthy of going that route.
 

DrKK

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Jesus christ. 450 watts seems normal to you guys? My FreeNAS box is rarely over 25 or 30 watts. I only have three drives in the system, but surely, that difference does not account for 400 watts.

My system is an X10SLM+-F.
 

helloha

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Yea, I pulled out the disks and power usage dropped to about 410 watt...

I do have 2 H310 cards in there an the Chelsio S320.

But did another test with an empty X8, two cpu's (E5620) this time. No disks, pulls 280watt. 4 2GB dimms.
 

DrKK

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Well that's insanity to me. An X10 board with a typical CPU and typical RAM and a reasonable number of drives won't even remotely approach 100 watts.
 

helloha

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I guess the platform is just dated then. My mac pro is running the same intel platform, 2x X5675 6 core cpu's and 64GB of ram. Pulls around 750 watt from the wall at idle...
 

SweetAndLow

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x10srl, e5-1620, 8x16GB samsung memory, 16 wd reds(5400rpm), lsi 9211-8i, supermicro 846e16 with fans and dual 1200w psu - pulls 200w exactly. i got this number from UPS and from IPMI.
 

Ericloewe

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Dual-CPU platforms have always been sucky in terms of power consumption (no pun intended).

My mac pro is running the same intel platform, 2x X5675 6 core cpu's and 64GB of ram. Pulls around 750 watt from the wall at idle...
Holy crap, the lead designer for that thing should be demoted to cleaning toilets if he actually led a team that managed to turn an idling workstation into a small space heater. I mean, that kind of crap was barely tolerable in the PowerPC days, much less with a Westmere-based platform.
 

ChriZ

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Yea, I pulled out the disks and power usage dropped to about 410 watt...

I do have 2 H310 cards in there an the Chelsio S320.

But did another test with an empty X8, two cpu's (E5620) this time. No disks, pulls 280watt. 4 2GB dimms.

Do try the same test with the 5630
And dropping only 40w after removing 16 7200rpm HDDs seems strange to me..
Anyways, in my mind I was thinking about a x10 system in the E5 territory (2011-3 socket), since these are the successors of the 1366 socket.
And such a system, with an E5 CPU, HBAs, 10G NICs and high rpm fans, will not consume less than 200watts
Like @SweetAndLow 's system, which has less power hungry disks.
So we are talking about half the electricity bills; savings of about $200 per year.
Such a system would cost no less than $1000, so you get your money back in at least 5years
Now, if we are talking about an e3 x10 system, then it is a very different story...
 

Jatrabari

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x10srl, e5-1620, 8x16GB samsung memory, 16 wd reds(5400rpm), lsi 9211-8i, supermicro 846e16 with fans and dual 1200w psu - pulls 200w exactly. i got this number from UPS and from IPMI.

Is 200 W pull when all discs are working or when idle?
 

SweetAndLow

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SweetAndLow

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Ok. Can you estimate or do you know the consumption under heavy use when all disc are active?
I can try and look. I have never really cared what full load usage is. Idle is what happens most of the time and if it needs to crank things up to get work done I'm all for it.
 

SweetAndLow

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Current peak usage according to ipmi was 298W. I'm sure it could go higher but that is what I have seen from my workflows.
 

Jatrabari

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I can try and look. I have never really cared what full load usage is. Idle is what happens most of the time and if it needs to crank things up to get work done I'm all for it.

Thank you. I am building almost identical build to a regular tower case and would appreciate if you can give some real world consumption numbers to use as my estimate for getting a PSU for my build.
 
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