How to minimize electricity usage?

[Dubesta11]

So I am moving into an apartment where I will be paying electricity, and I have not dealt with electric bills until now. I replaced all the light bulbs with LEDs already. I plan on only leaving my computer on when necessary and to shut it down every night (unless downloading large files). How much of a difference energy wise does it use under these situations:

 

-Overclocking (over-voltaging) on the CPU and GPU

-Underclocking when idling or light use

-Running a 3-4 person minecraft server (only when playing)

 

And also, will these numbers compare to lets say, using a 1000W microwave for a few minutes a day?

[WkdPaul]

Where are you located, that sometimes makes a big difference in usage

[Dubesta11]

Just now, wkdpaul said:

Where are you located, that sometimes makes a big difference in usage

Maine, I think electricity is a fairly standard cost here.

[Electronics Wizardy]

Id just sleep it, it uses only a watt or less and then can be waken instanetly.

 

A modern system will use about 40-50W web browsing and idle, and about 150w under load. 

 

OCing will pull abount 30 under load, 10w idle.

 

Underclock won't help and may use more power at idle, and its making the cpu spend less time in C states which use much less power than a low clocked cpud. 

 

A minecraft server will use very little extra power.

[Dubesta11]

2 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

Id just sleep it, it uses only a watt or less and then can be waken instanetly.

 

A modern system will use about 40-50W web browsing and idle, and about 150w under load. 

 

OCing will pull abount 30 under load, 10w idle.

 

Underclock won't help and may use more power at idle, and its making the cpu spend less time in C states which use much less power than a low clocked cpud. 

 

A minecraft server will use very little extra power.

 

Thats exactly what I was looking for. I have a Gold EVGA G2 so it should be as efficient as possible. I will also sleep it if it doesn't use much electricity to keep it active.

 

Also, has anyone used a energy reader for a wall outlet? (like a kill-a-watt). 

[WkdPaul]

So similar to what we have up here

 

Biggest cost in our area is heating and hot water.

 

What I do is keep the heating down a little, keep the PCs off when not using them.

 

I put my NAS on a wake up schedule and simply close it when I go out or go to sleep.

 

As far as overclocking goes, it's not going to be much at the end of the year, being careful with the heating and A/C is going to make a bigger difference.

[Electronics Wizardy]

1 minute ago, Dubesta11 said:

Also, has anyone used a energy reader for a wall outlet? (like a kill-a-watt). 

I have a kill a watt and a multimeter that i use.

 

For psu's, id get a smaller one around 300 w to save power, and its most effent at around 50-70% load.

[Dubesta11]

4 minutes ago, wkdpaul said:

So similar to what we have up here

 

Biggest cost in our area is heating and hot water.

 

What I do is keep the heating down a little, keep the PCs off when not using them.

 

I put my NAS on a wake up schedule and simply close it when I go out or go to sleep.

 

As far as overclocking goes, it's not going to be much at the end of the year, being careful with the heating and A/C is going to make a bigger difference.

Heating and hot water is included with rent, all we have to worry about is electric (Stove, microwave, fridge, lights, and electronics).

 

Edit: Also, according to my provider, it costs 1/7th as much for electricity after 8pm, which is when I would be gaming.

[AlwaysFSX]

You'll have more electrical draw from leaving your lights on when you don't need them than having your computer idling all night.

[mariushm]

According to this page, you're paying about 10 cents per kWh : http://www.maine.gov/meopa/utilities/electric/current_rates.html

 

If your computer uses 100 watts, then it will use 1kWh in 10 hours, it's as simple as that.

 

Best thing you can do is to buy one of those power metering devices, which will tell you the instant power consumption of whatever you have plugged in, and some even tell you the kWh value if you leave the device plugged in for a long enough period.

 

Here's a few good and cheap devices

 

P3 P4400 Kill A Watt Electricity Usage Monitor : http://amzn.to/2ic54it

TS-836A Plug Power Meter  http://amzn.to/2ic3UU7

TS-838 Plug Power Meter http://amzn.to/2hQpQF5 

Ensupra Electricity Usage Monitor, Power Meter  http://amzn.to/2ibYyYS

 

If you're lazy, you can just look at the instant power consumption and that's how much your device uses in one hour ... ex meter says computer idles at 100 watts, then you're using 0.1 kWh each hour your computer idles.

 

Running a minecraft server typically won't use more power consumption that normal, only the cpu of a computer will be used slightly more (so the power consumption will increase by about 20-30 watts in worst case)

The power consumption increases substantially when playing games that use video cards and do 3d... 3d games can add 50 to 250w to the system's power consumption (if your card is gtx 1060 like in the description it uses up to 100-140w in games) depending on video card , movie playback only adds 10-30w over the idle power consumption

 

Overclocking cpu and video card will increase power consumption a lot, downclocking not so much , as on most systems already the cpu and video card reduce their frequencies and power consumption dynamically depending on how heavy they're used.

 

 

[Electronics Wizardy]

4 minutes ago, Dubesta11 said:

Also, according to my provider, it costs 1/7th as much for electricity after 8pm, which is when I would be gaming.

Your system will change your electric bill a very small amount. I wouldn't worry about power usage at all. It will make less than a 5 dollar difference a month between doing all of this and leaving it running all the time.

[WkdPaul]

Just now, Dubesta11 said:

Heating and hot water is included with rent, all we have to worry about is electric (Stove, microwave, fridge, lights, and electronics)

That's a sweet deal then!

 

If so try to have your PCs off when not using them, completely off or S4 state won't have any big difference between them so I wouldn't worry about it too much.

 

Apart from that there isn't much energy to save with computers.

 

[NoCarrier]

Buy a dozen UPS's.  Charge them after peak hours, run your rig(s) off them during the day.  You should break even in about never because the batteries in the UPS will fail within a year or two.

 

That said, optimizing your wait states and keeping everything on a surge strip that you can physically turn off when you're not using (to prevent standby phantom power draw) will get you a little further.  Honestly today's hardware is pretty efficient and unless you're pushing your gear to 80% nonstop, it shouldn't be a huge issue as far as power draw.

 

As for the rest of the house...  a personal anecdote.  a decade ago i noticed my power bill was creeping up slowly month over month until after a year, it was almost double.  Turns out the fridge was going bad - plugged in a killawatt and discovered the majority of the bill was coming from the fridge. 

[Dubesta11]

1 minute ago, NoCarrier said:

Buy a dozen UPS's.  Charge them after peak hours, run your rig(s) off them during the day.  You should break even in about never because as the batteries in the UPS will fail within a year or two.

 

That said, optimizing your wait states and keeping everything on a surge strip that you can physically turn off when you're not using (to prevent standby phantom power draw) will get you a little further.  Honestly today's hardware is pretty efficient and unless you're pushing your gear to 80% nonstop, it shouldn't be a huge issue as far as power draw.

 

I was trying to figure out why you were trying to get me to run UPS's lol. I have a power strip that has sockets that are controlled by a master socket that I can plug my monitors/speakers on.

[Electronics Wizardy]

2 minutes ago, NoCarrier said:

(to prevent standby phantom power draw)

Almost nothing, don't worry about that.

 

I wouldn't worry about the time. It won't make a major difference. Turn down your ac or heat will make a much bigger difference.

[Guest]

• Electric showers 
• Kettle 
• Washing machine
• Dishwasher 
• Cooker 

Those are your main things. PCs, TVs, lights etc. account for pennies 

[ScratchCat]

If I were you I would get a R Pi 3 for the server, it uses less than 10w.

I undervolt my CPU by around 0.125v and using Hwinfo the Package power is decreased around 10 ish watts, meaning the i5 4690k only has a displayed package power of around 50w under video editing.

[Dubesta11]

Just now, obi-fade-kenobi said:

• Electric showers 
• Kettle 
• Washing machine
• Dishwasher 
• Cooker 

Those are your main things. PCs, TVs, lights etc. account for pennies 

 

Out of what you listed, I only have a stove. So I will wait for my first bill then see how bad it is.

[Dubesta11]

3 minutes ago, ScratchCat said:

If I were you I would get a R Pi 3 for the server, it uses less than 10w.

I undervolt my CPU by around 0.125v and using Hwinfo the Package power is decreased around 10 ish watts, meaning the i5 4690k only has a displayed package power of around 50w under video editing.

Would a PI even be capable of easily running a server at maximum rendering distance? I usually use the computer to play minecraft while the server is running anyways.

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, Dubesta11 said:

 

Out of what you listed, I only have a stove. So I will wait for my first bill then see how bad it is.

I mean we have one of those smart energy meters that show your usage in real time, and that's what I've found so far. When it's just small appliances like lights, several TVs, my PC etc. it's relatively low. Turn one of those on and boom, you're in the red. 

 

Though ours bills are usually quite high (family, most of whom don't give a damn), so by your standards it might be high

[Dubesta11]

1 minute ago, obi-fade-kenobi said:

I mean we have one of those smart energy meters that show your usage in real time, and that's what I've found so far. When it's just small appliances like lights, several TVs, my PC etc. it's relatively low. Turn one of those on and boom, you're in the red. 

 

Though ours bills are usually quite high (family, most of whom don't give a damn), so by your standards it might be what I consider low

So lets say that I somehow manage to average 2 hours a day playing video games (which is higher than what I do but would account for idle usage), and my electricity costs around 10c/kWh. Lets say my computer draws 500w under gaming load (which is higher than normal). That would be 500 x 2 = 1kWh x .1 = 10 cents a day x 30 = $3 a month?

 

Is that right?

[FilipSebik]

34 minutes ago, Electronics Wizardy said:

A modern system will use about 40-50W web browsing and idle, and about 150w under load. 

Did you came from future? Because my modern system uses like 80 watts during idle and 200 during load

[Electronics Wizardy]

5 minutes ago, FilipSebik said:

Did you came from future? Because my modern system uses like 80 watts during idle and 200 during load

assuming your system is the one below

 

- You system is overclocked

-Your running haswell, not skylake

-You have 2hdds

-You have a maxwell gpu.

 

You can easily cut off 40w from that idle.

[FilipSebik]

Just now, Electronics Wizardy said:

assuming your system is the one below

 

- You system is overclocked

-Your running haswell, not skylake

-You have 2hdds

-You have a maxwell gpu.

 

You can easily cut off 40w from that idle.

Not overclocked, 2 HDDs, 2 SDDs, Haswell, GTX 960 still 80W during idle and I don't even care

[mariushm]

31 minutes ago, Dubesta11 said:

So lets say that I somehow manage to average 2 hours a day playing video games (which is higher than what I do but would account for idle usage), and my electricity costs around 10c/kWh. Lets say my computer draws 500w under gaming load (which is higher than normal). That would be 500 x 2 = 1kWh x .1 = 10 cents a day x 30 = $3 a month?

 

Is that right?

Yeah pretty much.  But unless you have two video cards in SLI/Crossfire and an overclocked processor, you won't use 500 watts. It'll be more like 200-300 watts when gaming.

 

Last time I checked, my FX-8320 with 16 gb of memory and ssd + 4 hard drives and a Radeon 7770 Ghz edition used about 270-300 watts when gaming and about 150-170w when idle.  The 7770 uses up to 75w when gaming.

Going to do some more tests (have one of those power meters) in a couple of days when my RX 470 arrives.