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Are softwares accurate at measuring power consumption?

Filingo

I want to buy a wattage meter for the power socket to measure my PC power draw. But until it arrives I downloaded "Open Hardware Monitor", ran Prime95 and it seemed to be working and quite accurate. My laptop TDP is rated 37w and at 100% load I see 20w (I guess Intel's TDP is general for the entire CPU family, and some may draw less as in my case)

 

 

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CPU TDP is not and should not be used to indicate power draw, on Intel or AMD CPUs. CPUs will use what they use on a given workload, subject to limits set in CPU or system. 

 

If you get a power monitor for socket, that would also include losses (efficiency) of the power supply, and other components using power.

 

Some PSUs can also do some monitoring and reporting.

Main system: i9-7980XE, Asus X299 TUF mark 2, Noctua D15, Corsair Vengeance Pro 3200 3x 16GB 2R, RTX 3070, NZXT E850, GameMax Abyss, Samsung 980 Pro 2TB, Acer Predator XB241YU 24" 1440p 144Hz G-Sync + HP LP2475w 24" 1200p 60Hz wide gamut
Gaming laptop: Lenovo Legion 5, 5800H, RTX 3070, Kingston DDR4 3200C22 2x16GB 2Rx8, Kingston Fury Renegade 1TB + Crucial P1 1TB SSD, 165 Hz IPS 1080p G-Sync Compatible

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47 minutes ago, porina said:

CPU TDP is not and should not be used to indicate power draw, on Intel or AMD CPUs. CPUs will use what they use on a given workload, subject to limits set in CPU or system. 

 

If you get a power monitor for socket, that would also include losses (efficiency) of the power supply, and other components using power.

 

Some PSUs can also do some monitoring and reporting.

so this software is fairly accurate at measuring only the CPU ? It's not connected to anything but gets reading directly from the CPU.

 

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2 minutes ago, Filingo said:

so this software is fairly accurate at measuring only the CPU ? It's not connected to anything but gets reading directly from the CPU.

It comes down to how much you trust the CPU to be accurate at reporting itself. It'll probably be good enough for enthusiast uses.

Main system: i9-7980XE, Asus X299 TUF mark 2, Noctua D15, Corsair Vengeance Pro 3200 3x 16GB 2R, RTX 3070, NZXT E850, GameMax Abyss, Samsung 980 Pro 2TB, Acer Predator XB241YU 24" 1440p 144Hz G-Sync + HP LP2475w 24" 1200p 60Hz wide gamut
Gaming laptop: Lenovo Legion 5, 5800H, RTX 3070, Kingston DDR4 3200C22 2x16GB 2Rx8, Kingston Fury Renegade 1TB + Crucial P1 1TB SSD, 165 Hz IPS 1080p G-Sync Compatible

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