Power Consumption Monitor. How Many Watts You Using?

[HighTowers 1,434]

I got a power consumption monitor that is pretty neat. Its basically a glorified  multi meter with a fancy calculator in it displaying wattage being consumed, amps, KWH used etc. Cheap too. 20 bucks.

 

Here is some interesting tidbits. Of course its very subjective to your hardware and other things but in case youve ever wondered your power consumption here is my ballpark figures.

 

PC running at idle with a browser open and roughly 10 tabs open uses 160-180W on avg

 

Running P3d peaked at 280W with major airport, aircraft and scenery. Avg is 240W , minimized it drops to 170-190W

 

X-plane - 350W peak  avg 300W  Night flying 260W minimized no difference.

 

DTG FS  370 peak avg 320W (not alot of testing)

 

Most high end games today I believe will pull roughly 370W

 

With these numbers the monitor gives me running total of my KwH which is how hydro companies bill you usually. Here in Vancouver its roughly .0829c/KwH.

In the 3 weeks ive had it connected all the time, my computer has consumed 67 KwH. Thats running 18 hours a day. 2-4 flights per week. Its cost me about $5.50 so far or about 7$ a month .   Again all is subjective but if you know your KwH rate charge, you can get an idea how much it costs to run.

 

Here is my PC specs where all devices are connected to a power bar and running through the power monitor.

 

I5-2500k  OC to 4.2MhZ

Nvidia 970

16gb ram DDR3

700W PS

24" LCD monitor

 

 

 

 

 

 

[JWNoctis 4]

Maybe try it again while running rthdribl and prime95 at the same. Use that as absolute maximum. Also yeah, most home computer setups consume little power compared to A/C and heating(if electrical).

[zmak 331]

Thanks ,great post and good to know real numbers.

 

Quite a few simmers running 800-1000 watts. Can only assume its overcompensation

[JRBarrett 3,049]

Interesting data! My UPS has the ability to display amps or watts being consumed on its front display. I'll have to give that a try.

 

I do know that X-Plane consumes more energy than P3D, based on CPU and GPU temperatures. CPU temps are about the same in both sims - about 45-50C under full load. (I have a very efficient water cooler). The big difference is the GPU power consumption. If I turn off the auto speed function on the cooling fan of my GTX-970, P3D will take GPU temperature up to about 45C, while with XP, GPU temp goes right to 70C almost immediately, so it is clearly working the GPU harder.

[HighTowers 1,434]

Ive nocticed that between the sims.  It says to me that P3D has a whole lot more potential for drawing more power. Even flight school was pulling more.

 

Good idea James, ill run prime 95 and see what it consumes.

Edited May 28, 2016 by HighTowers

[HighTowers 1,434]

Running prime 95 high load test plus MSI Kombuster torture test peaked it at 390W on my system.  The question is why is P3D pulling far less power.  Room for improvement there which would I assume have a wee bit more performance improvements. Anyone else have one of these monitors for comparison?

[Luke 782]

 

 

The question is why is P3D pulling far less power.  Room for improvement there

 

Probably not as much as you think.

 

A CPU torture test is explicitly designed to thermally stress a CPU. That means that every consideration in its design is around ensuring that the CPU cores are doing work and never waiting on cache, memory or I/O. There are no data or execution dependencies between the cores/threads so again there are no delays.

 

Software isn't designed with that goal in mind. It's similar to getting a group of people together to build a house; after some point adding more workers doesn't speed things up because there are certain basic dependencies and delays you are forced to deal with and cannot get around.

 

Cheers!
 

Luke

[HighTowers 1,434]

Fair enough that makes sense. But still, x-plane, a few other modern games, and even DTGs new  flight school is pulling quite a bit more power.  I cant increase the settings in p3d to increase the stress load, as its max load for what is acceptable frame rate. You would think P3D should be pulling at least similar power draw. Either its my p3d installation, or its p3d itself if others are getting similar draw relative to other sims.