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Anybody else actually measured their power usage as opposed to calculate it?

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Joined
Mar 14, 2014
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740
Motherboard
Z97X-UD5H
CPU
i7-4790K
Graphics
2 x R9 280X
Mac
  1. iMac
  2. MacBook
  3. MacBook Pro
  4. Mac Pro
Hi,

I need to get a UPS for home, I have a Hack, a FreeNAS box and VMWare ESXI Server. I also have three monitors, some local networking and other odds and sods.

Rather than try to work out what my consumption is on my hackinotsh, I thought I'd buy a little power meter that I plug my Hack into and let it work it out. Then I get accurate figures.

So I plug my hackintosh into this little meter and turn everything on. Somewhat to my surprise I'm struggling to get over 250W.

Given that I have

  1. An Intel i4770K running at normal speeds. Not over clocked or underclocked.
  2. 32GB of memory
  3. 2 x AMD 280X cards
  4. Four SSD's
  5. Three 2TB hard disks
I thought I'd be breaking 400-500W but I can't do anything to even get to 300W. I've copied things from the internet, started a disk to disk copy, kicked off RAW graphics processing, I've got a FCP X transcode going on the background and can just break 270W.

I'm puzzled as I think I should be using far more power. In some respects this is good as it reduces the size of UPS I need but I still can't work out why it's so mall.

Anybody else actually measured their power usage as opposed to calculate it?

Thanks

Rob
 
Hi,

I need to get a UPS for home, I have a Hack, a FreeNAS box and VMWare ESXI Server. I also have three monitors, some local networking and other odds and sods.

Rather than try to work out what my consumption is on my hackinotsh, I thought I'd buy a little power meter that I plug my Hack into and let it work it out. Then I get accurate figures.

So I plug my hackintosh into this little meter and turn everything on. Somewhat to my surprise I'm struggling to get over 250W.

Given that I have

  1. An Intel i4770K running at normal speeds. Not over clocked or underclocked.
  2. 32GB of memory
  3. 2 x AMD 280X cards
  4. Four SSD's
  5. Three 2TB hard disks
I thought I'd be breaking 400-500W but I can't do anything to even get to 300W. I've copied things from the internet, started a disk to disk copy, kicked off RAW graphics processing, I've got a FCP X transcode going on the background and can just break 270W.

I'm puzzled as I think I should be using far more power. In some respects this is good as it reduces the size of UPS I need but I still can't work out why it's so mall.

Anybody else actually measured their power usage as opposed to calculate it?

Thanks

Rob

The last time I checked, my Z370 + i9-9900K (overclocked) system was pulling just around 300W from the wall at full CPU load. Considering how much more power hungry an overclocked 9900K is compared to your 4770K, your numbers sound about correct.

Since I switched to a Z390 motherboard which has better VRM, it has allowed me to dial down the voltage for my overclock and I'm seeing approx 30W less power consumption from the wall.

I have an 8 drive NAS and I don't think I have ever seen it pull much over 80W.

I tested out running a Proxmox hypervisor briefly but neglected to take power consumption measurements.
 
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@pastrychef

Thanks for the update. Reassuring that the numbers do make sense.

Tomorrow I'll check the FreeNas box 6 x 4TB Iron Wolfs on a single Xeon. The VMWare is i4770, 32GB but all SSD so I'm expecting that to be in the 150W range, interesting to see what the FreeNas box comes in at.

All the best from the UK

Rob
 
Last edited:
@pastrychef

Thanks for the update. Reassuring that the numbers do make sense.

Tomorrow I'll check the FreeNas box 6 x 4TB Iron Wolfs on Dual Xeon. The VMWare is i4770, 32GB but all SSD so I'm expecting that to be in the 150W range, interesting to see what the FreeNas box comes in at.

All the best from the UK

Rob

Your NAS is much beefier than mine... I run my NAS off of an Intel C2550 which is only rated at 14W TDP.
 
@pastrychef

The FreeNAS runs a couple of other things as well in Jails. I had a Dell T110i server going free, so I did what I could. I used to have Symbology NAS with some of low powered Marvel chip. Utter rubbish. Also it's a single Xeon, I have double Xeons on the shelf but no idea why I wrote dual Xeons :(

Anyway the FreeNAS box runs 136W max at startup and 63W normally. Give there is six Iron Wolf 4TB disks, thats OK.

The VMWare with 32GB Ram, four SSD's runs 80W Max at startup and 50W normally.

Since I had assumed I needed 400W + 300W + 300W and now need 300W + 150W + 100W, and thats really peak loading. I'm quite pleased.

All the best

Rob
 
@pastrychef

The FreeNAS runs a couple of other things as well in Jails. I had a Dell T110i server going free, so I did what I could. I used to have Symbology NAS with some of low powered Marvel chip. Utter rubbish. Also it's a single Xeon, I have double Xeons on the shelf but no idea why I wrote dual Xeons :(

Anyway the FreeNAS box runs 136W max at startup and 63W normally. Give there is six Iron Wolf 4TB disks, thats OK.

The VMWare with 32GB Ram, four SSD's runs 80W Max at startup and 50W normally.

Since I had assumed I needed 400W + 300W + 300W and now need 300W + 150W + 100W, and thats really peak loading. I'm quite pleased.

All the best

Rob

The performance of my NAS is very good even without considering how little power the CPU consumes. I think that the ARM based units really suffer when rebuilding/re-silvering. For basic NAS functions (i.e. no add-ons such as VM hosts, Dockers, etc.), I feel that a low end Intel CPU is fine.

For my daily driver, the i9-9900K/Z390 system, I use an APC Back UPS Pro 1500 with the optional external battery pack. I've used this model dating back to my Power Mac G4 days. I remember lugging it back from CompUSA... Although, I did have to replace the main unit twice, I keep going back to the same model because of how well it protected my system during Hurricane Sandy and the ensuing blackout that lasted over a week. It allowed my to safely shut down my system and even provided me with a bit of power throughout the blackout. It was what kept my iPhone charged.

For my NAS, I have a much smaller APC UPS, but the NAS is set to shut down within minutes once it's on battery power.
 
I used a Kill-A-Watt meter to watch my Gigabyte Z97X-UD5H (i7-4790K with gentle OC, and two SSDs), and was quite surprised to find how low the actual current draw was, compared to the 'calculated' load. I then put it on one of my older EP45-UD3P Core2Quad-era (Q6600 with three spinning-disk HDs) builds, and oof! Not very efficient for the delivered computing performance.
 
@percussive, @pastrychef

I ended up buying a reconditioned 1KW APC Smart UPS. The company puts new batteries in and they are around 1/2 the price of new.

I have a Freenas server and a ESXI server connected, but not my Hack. They take up 18% of the battery according to the panel.

I pulled the main cable out of the UPS and was interested to see how long the UPS lasts. After 30 mins of beeping I gave up as I had only gone down to 70% of the battery. I suspect I'd easily get 45 mins and possibly longer before I even need to shutdown.

I'll buy a second similar sized one for the Hack later.

As you say, the modern stuff is so good on power management. I'd be interested to see what a C2550 does and whether it allows me to run many jails.

Rob
 
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