From owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Thu Jan 1 15:29:46 2004 Return-Path: Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id D2DE816A4CE for ; Thu, 1 Jan 2004 15:29:46 -0800 (PST) Received: from gw.catspoiler.org (217-ip-163.nccn.net [209.79.217.163]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9703C43D49 for ; Thu, 1 Jan 2004 15:29:45 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from truckman@FreeBSD.org) Received: from FreeBSD.org (mousie.catspoiler.org [192.168.101.2]) by gw.catspoiler.org (8.12.9p2/8.12.9) with ESMTP id i01NTU7E000615; Thu, 1 Jan 2004 15:29:34 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from truckman@FreeBSD.org) Message-Id: <200401012329.i01NTU7E000615@gw.catspoiler.org> Date: Thu, 1 Jan 2004 15:29:30 -0800 (PST) From: Don Lewis To: cracauer@cons.org In-Reply-To: <20031225224609.A5326@cons.org> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/plain; charset=us-ascii cc: freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: Power consumption in desktop computers X-BeenThere: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Technical Discussions relating to FreeBSD List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , X-List-Received-Date: Thu, 01 Jan 2004 23:29:46 -0000 A few more data points: System 1 (FreeBSD 4-STABLE) Pentium II 400 Asus P2B-LS motherboard (fxp + aic7890 Ultra2 SCSI on board) 384 MB ECC RAM Matrox G20 Floppy Seagate ST336737LW Seagate ST39173LW Plextor PX-R412C CD-R Tandberg SLR-5 Floppy Supermicro Case with lots of fans Idle: 72W / 112VA Active: 88W / 134VA System 2 (FreeBSD 4-STABLE) Aopen AX34-U motherboard 1 GHz Celeron underclocked to 668 MHz (66 MHz FSB instead of rated 100 MHz) 256 MB ECC RAM cheap PCI video card IBM IC25N010ATDA04 10 GB laptop drive 1x sis ethernet 1x fxp ethernet no floppy 90 W (?) power supply Active(?): 39 W / 57 VA System 3 (FreeBSD 5-CURRENT) Gigabyte GA7-DX+ motherboard Athlon XP 1900+ 1 GB ECC RAM Adaptec 19160B SCSI controller Seagate ST336706LW ancient NEC CD-ROM drive fxp ethernet g-force 2mx video floppy Antec True Power 330W supply Idle: 135 W / 198 VA Active: 153 W / 223 VA The power measurements were made with a Radio Shack "Kill A Watt" meter. System #3 is my second fastest machine. My 1.5 GHz Pentium-M laptop is slightly faster on the "make buildworld" benchmark. I haven't gotten around to measuring its power consumption yet, but it runs a whole lot cooler than the Athlon and its power supply is rated at 72 W. The newer Athlon processors would be interesting, except that I haven't found a motherboard that supports them with ECC RAM. About the only Athlon motherboards that support ECC RAM use the AMD 761 chipset, which is getting rather dated. Has anyone done power consumption measurements on amd64 systems? There are some Pentium-M motherboards available now that support ECC RAM. They are targeted at the embedded market and are fairly pricey, but I would expect them to perform well and have low power consumption.