The Official PC building thread -3rd Edition

The average user doesn't think about it. When they realise that over the course of a few years, if they use their PC a lot, the AMD stands them an extra hundred dollars or more, maybe they'd reconsider...

 

Sam,
They don't look at it that way! If they saw a $20 a month increase in their electric bill, perhaps they would. People wouldn't notice 3 or 4 dollars a month more. I can see it being more of a concern for you, as you are a "gamer", you've overclocked and still there's the power draw of a higher end video card to consider into the total cost of running your computer! The Energy Saving Features of most motherboards only work at the default settings, so for us overclockers, they are pointless and useless!

Energy costs for this house are about $100 a month. In the winter, the electric goes down but the gas goes up, so it always stays right around $100 a month. Funny how that works! LOL!! We also pay on an Energy plan where we pay a flat $96 fee every month because we use less electricity and Gas than a lot of our neighbors. They adjust it every December! So far in the last 3 years we always wound up with a credit on December's bills. Our last December's bill we only owed $16.67 out of the monthly $96 the bill runs as we had a credit of $79.33, so we earned back almost $80 for the entire year by using less than the power company's energy usage projections for this house! You know all the different computers I've had over the last 3-4 years. We've always had at least two computers here from The Dual 1.0GHz P-III Dell 420, to the Current AMD of Russells, and a P4 Prescot through my present E6750, and the power usage hasn't gone up at all. The difference for the last 3 years could be covered with less than $5! Of course I do turn off lights when they are not needed. I used to wake up in the middle of the night and every damn light in the house would be on. That's changed so now we are both more careful! Back then the bills used to run $125-$130 a month, mostly because of waste! We've also switched to more energy efficient, energy saving light bulbs, and replaced a few appliances with more energy efficient ones. It all helps!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

I know that has NOTHING to do with PC building but it's FUNNY!! hehehee. ;O

I'm sorry Russ, don't mean to use you for a joke but hey it was funny and I needed the LOL after the week I've had.

Interesting talk on power consumption the last few pages. Russ you're right a few more bucks haven't been noticed in my household.. BUT when there's 4 computers running sometime soon I'll see what the wifey says. ROFL.

...gm

 

greensman,

The most you would likely see would be an $8 to $12 increase, and frankly from what I've seen with our bills, I don't even think it will be noticeable. If you overclock the Power Saving stuff doesn't work anyway! It turns off! Witness how fast the Asus EPU chip all but disappeared from the face of the earth! Fact is, the people who buy those high dollar motherboards don't want "Power Savings", they want "Power"! Opps, I guess I just involved about 80% of the members of AD! ROFLMAO!

Russ

 

wow, i don't know who must i concur with. What sam said is wrong ad so is russ. Sometimes my computer runs 24/7 for 2 months, and the elec bill DID increase quite A LOT! and i'm using Intel cpu. But hey, it did use less elec than AMD ones

 

A lot depends on what you do with the computer, in the first place. Take Sam! He's a gamer, so he would use a lot more energy than I do, regardless of what platform he used. Folks like Rob or GM do a lot of burning, so they would use even more energy than Sam or I use.

When I first moved here, I had a P4 Prescot, 3.0/800 and my roomie had the Dell Dual P-III 1.0GHz workstation. He got the P4 when I built the Dual Core 3.2GHz Presler. When I built my first E4300 C2D, I built him an Athlon 64 4000+. Now I have the E6750 and he has an AMD AM2 64x2 4800+ and the electric bills have varied less than $4 a month over the last 3 years. I have a total of 6 fans running, compared to his three. 3 case fans, a Freezer 7, chipset fan and the video card. He has a 92mm exhaust fan, a 50mm for the chipset, a Freezer 64 and on-board 6150 graphics. We use about $30-$35 a month less electricity today than when I first moved here. All I'm saying is we haven't see much of an increase in power consumption over the last three years, regardless of what combination of computers we've had running on several different platforms, it doesn't reflect $50 a year. Maybe $20 a year at the most, or about $1.66 a month. I'm just not fussed about that at all!

Best Regards,
Russ

 

sorry russ, the sentence that you quoted, really, after reading it again, i can't remember when i siad that. I think i was suppose to say you two are right and not wrong. Anyways, you got the point right. It all depends on what you're doing.

I game quite a lot, but not as lot as you guys. What i use my computer for is to download anime, movies etc and i seldom game, unless i have a new game such as Warhead. Otherwise i only use it for multi-media and it's running 24/7, maybe thats the reason the bill increased.

 

Ah, but that two dollars over the course of an year is 24 dollars! aha!

 

how the heck can anybody know exactly how much power their pc is consuming unless they put it on it's own dedicated electric meter. there are too many other variables. the amount the a/c runs and how much you use your oven or stove top, and dryer (if electric) and even your toaster, will dramatically change your power consumption much more than how much you use your pc, what processor it has or how often it is on.

the power consumption of my pc is probably the last thing I consider when I look at each monthly electric bill. there are just too many variables and other appliances that make a much larger difference.

 

I've got a 650 watt PSU, If U get a an average of what a kilowatt hr is and figure a 100 watt light bulb x 6.50. Mine Comp averages 20 bucks a month its mostly on 24/7

 

but even under full load your pc is not consuming what the psu is rated at so you can't figure it that way. at idle, it is only consuming a fraction of the psu's rated output and I would guess it is only rarely consuming even 1/2 of the 650 watts.

 

Mort is absolutely right and that's exactly how tech sites such as Anandtech measure power, at the plug.

You can't make that comparison and be right. A 100 watt light bulb turned on uses a steady power supply that can be measured, but a 650 watt power supply is a potential power source that fluctuates with demand. If your computer is idle then it uses less power than the 100 watt bulb, but if one is gaming it will use considerably more power, but probably no where near 650 watts.

 

U TORRENT Runs 24hr,TV Series,etc
I'm on the computer at least 6 to 8 hrs daily surfing & converting AVIs to DVD,Backing up my DVDs. All these really test my CPU & HDDs & Burners. With all this going on at the same time, don't U think my PSU is running close to full load

 

None of those are exceptionally power demanding processes over all. In fact you could multi task them all at the same time and only barely tap into a 650 watt power supply. A large download file's demand on a hard drive is protracted and has to be measured by watts used over time.

 

Mort81,
I couldn't agree more! The variables are mind boggling! All I can really do is look at the total consumption and compare it to the previous years. I guess it's like gas mileage in cars! Results may vary! Last year was our lowest power consumption of the last three years. Some of this is better habits, on our part. November and December always go over our billing limit ($96) because of the holidays, but all the other 10 months are below the limit, so come December's bill we'll have a $77-$80 credit for the year. Last year it was $79.33. If the AMD cost $50 a year more to run, it should reflect in how much of a credit we get back this year. Monthly power consumtion isn't showing anything different! I'll let you know in December! LOL!! I don't expect to see a $50 difference coming at all. Maybe $15-$20 at the most, and who the hell can tell exactly where it came from? Frankly I'm expecting the cost to be a lot less!

Regards,
Russ

 

Your usage for other appliances will vary more than that per momth - if your bills don't change, then I'm going to say your provider charges you the same amount regardless of usage and only adjusts it if a large amount is left outstanding...

 

ok guys i kinda need help here.

I have a GA-945GCMX-S2 mobo, today i tried to overclock my cpu E2160 @1.8Ghz. It has a multiplier of 9 and defualt FSB200, and 2x1 DDR2 800 but the mobo only support upto DDR2 667, therefore it was clocked down. Normal vcore is 1.32000v so i wanted to see how far i can OC this CPU to at default voltage. I manage to get upto 2.2Ghz, it was able to load the windows, run programs. So i used Prime95 to test the stability of the OC, and after like a minute of the test/stress test my computer froze...so i had to restart.

Anyways another problem is when i increase the FSB to 267 so i could reach 2.4Ghz and also the vcore to 1.35v it couldn't boot keep restarting until it returns to default clocks...why is that so?

 

Memory speed needs to match FSB speed to a set multiplier. Forget overclocking on that board, it's a waste of time.