I’m planning to build a velomobile (and trailer) and live out of it for at least a year. One of the things I’ve been mulling over is computers, as I’d like to build or buy a new computer at some point in the not-too-distant future to replace my current dying laptop. How much power does your Mini-ITX machine use when idling? And have you tried to optimise it down?
I’ve been thinking of things like the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, shutting down most of the cores when I want to conserve power in addition to severely underclocking it a lot of the time, but so that at times when power is more readily available or if I’m compiling lots of stuff, I can go all out.
I see figures for the last few generations of desktop processors of the whole machine using something like 50W when idling.
Meanwhile, I see a laptop with a 49Wh battery and an AMD Ryzen 5 4500U advertising ten hour battery life for a web browsing workload—which means that it’s averaging 5W for the computer and screen, when doing even a little bit more than idling.
So then I think, these desktop computers can’t actually be idling at that much power, right? That’s over a kilowatt hour per day if left on full time! Or at least, there must be some way of instructing them to use far less power, like a laptop would? (It’s a long time since I’ve dealt with a desktop computer to the level of knowing about power consumption.)
I’d love the power of a top-end desktop processor and to pair it with a carefully chosen and placed screen, but if that means an extra 50W or more of drain while it’s on, I might need to go with a laptop to make it through the winter.
(Many DC–ATX power supplies wouldn’t deliver enough power, but I believe https://www.mini-box.com/M4-ATX, rated at 250W (300W peak), should be just barely sufficient for a typical machine with any of AMD’s 105W CPUs, like the 5950X, and a 60–75W GPU like the AMD Radeon RX 560 (as powerful as you get before requiring an external power connector, which I haven’t spotted a DC power supply supporting, though I haven’t looked too hard), at full load. But slightly reducing the envelope of the CPU or GPU would probably be a good idea.)
Perhaps I should ask Metabox for details about https://metabox.com.au/store/Prime-Ai-Range (from the Clevo ODM) and what power it uses when idling. I’ve never seen a 230W AC adapter before!
I never tried to "optimize it down", because I essentially always had enough power (and on the very rare occasions that I did not, I just stopped working).
Laptop battery life is only accurate if you do typical consumer laptop-y things. If you develop native desktop software or edit video (maybe even audio) all day, those numbers are impressively optimistic.
I believe my mini-ITX system is rated 160W TPU. A full quad-core sustained compile would pull about 12A DC, or about 140W, but that included the monitor, voltage regulator and 40W audio amp. At idle, the same setup would pull about 2-4A, or 24-48W.
I have been doing home hosting and took interest in power consumption becasluse my server is, well, idle most of the time.
My mini-ITX server pulls 14 watts most of the time, has i3-8100 and no GPU. This idle power seems to vary greatly by motherboard. Additionally, you will have to pair a ryzen with a GPU, and my older GPU consuned over 50W even when idle, i uogrades to send-hand vega and power consunption dripped significantly.
I’ve been thinking of things like the AMD Ryzen 9 5950X, shutting down most of the cores when I want to conserve power in addition to severely underclocking it a lot of the time, but so that at times when power is more readily available or if I’m compiling lots of stuff, I can go all out.
I see figures for the last few generations of desktop processors of the whole machine using something like 50W when idling.
Meanwhile, I see a laptop with a 49Wh battery and an AMD Ryzen 5 4500U advertising ten hour battery life for a web browsing workload—which means that it’s averaging 5W for the computer and screen, when doing even a little bit more than idling.
So then I think, these desktop computers can’t actually be idling at that much power, right? That’s over a kilowatt hour per day if left on full time! Or at least, there must be some way of instructing them to use far less power, like a laptop would? (It’s a long time since I’ve dealt with a desktop computer to the level of knowing about power consumption.)
I’d love the power of a top-end desktop processor and to pair it with a carefully chosen and placed screen, but if that means an extra 50W or more of drain while it’s on, I might need to go with a laptop to make it through the winter.
(Many DC–ATX power supplies wouldn’t deliver enough power, but I believe https://www.mini-box.com/M4-ATX, rated at 250W (300W peak), should be just barely sufficient for a typical machine with any of AMD’s 105W CPUs, like the 5950X, and a 60–75W GPU like the AMD Radeon RX 560 (as powerful as you get before requiring an external power connector, which I haven’t spotted a DC power supply supporting, though I haven’t looked too hard), at full load. But slightly reducing the envelope of the CPU or GPU would probably be a good idea.)
Perhaps I should ask Metabox for details about https://metabox.com.au/store/Prime-Ai-Range (from the Clevo ODM) and what power it uses when idling. I’ve never seen a 230W AC adapter before!