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Power consumption and efficiency in gaming: AMD vs Intel

Soldato
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The PSU is critical and lower the system power draw the more complex the more difficult the calculations become. I’ve been through 9 PSU’s.

9 PSU's, Lord! I have always seemed to get away with either a Nightjar fanless PSU or a PICO PSU in a Streacom (in a build years ago).


The motherboard and PSU are usually more important than the CPU to the overall power use @ idle (assuming the same gen/socket of CPU) and if the power consumption is very low, they're much more important.

Mobo then I will look into next thanks.
 
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Man of Honour
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The motherboard and PSU are usually more important than the CPU to the overall power use @ idle (assuming the same gen/socket of CPU) and if the power consumption is very low, they're much more important.

Definitely if you are considering overall power draw at the wall/actual power consumption. I see people talking about it with the 7800X3D vs Intel 13/14th gen a lot but once you add in the graphics card if you don't pay attention to the rest of the components the actual system power consumption differences is much less distinct - the wrong PSU and a power hog motherboard and you might be only 10% better with the more efficient AMD CPU despite the CPU itself being at least twice as power efficient (for gaming) at the same performance.
 
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Soldato
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9 PSU's, Lord! I have always seemed to get away with either a Nightjar fanless PSU or a PICO PSU in a Streacom (in a build years ago).




Mobo then I will look into next thanks.

Quite a difference in power use between them. A minimal load can result in terrible efficiency. The PSU could end up pulling more power than the system.
 
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Soldato
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Quite a difference in power use between them. A minimal load can result in terrible efficiency. The PSU could end up pulling more power than the system.

You have to put it into context though... modern 'good quality' PSUs generally have zero-fan speed/low power modes if you are just surfing the net or whatever...but then you are only talking like LED light bulbs wortht of difference, which is basically nothing.

For exanple, I don't think the efficiency gains from a 'platinum' rated PSU is worth the cost over a 'gold' rated PSU, with the assumption you are buying a reletivley high spec PSU in the first place.
 
Soldato
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If CPU A is pulling 300 watts under load with CPU B pulling 150 watts what what does it matter if CPU A pulls 5 Watts less at idle?

I mean.... do you use your computer or do you like to stare at it all day every day?
Am sure my computer spends by far more time at idle while am browsing the internet/ Reading/writing on this forum, Gets Left on many times all night for downloading games due to my slow internet connection /Me Falling asleep before turning the system off which happens a lot (Yes even last night :o) etc
 
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Soldato
Joined
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Posts
18,326
You have to put it into context though... modern 'good quality' PSUs generally have zero-fan speed/low power modes if you are just surfing the net or whatever...but then you are only talking like LED light bulbs wortht of difference, which is basically nothing.

For exanple, I don't think the efficiency gains from a 'platinum' rated PSU is worth the cost over a 'gold' rated PSU, with the assumption you are buying a reletivley high spec PSU in the first place.

The CPU power draw at low use states is largely irrelevant, in fact it hardly relevant at all as other components matters more. The PSU being being critical at very low loads.
 
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Soldato
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Am sure my computer spends by far more time at idle while am browsing the internet/ Reading/writing on this forum, Gets Left on many times all night for downloading games due to my slow internet connection /Me Falling asleep before turning the system off which happens a lot (Yes even last night :o) etc

The biggest power draw will be the monitor.
 
Man of Honour
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You have to put it into context though... modern 'good quality' PSUs generally have zero-fan speed/low power modes if you are just surfing the net or whatever...
They should have a low power mode, but apart from the zero-rpm mode, most don't. ATX PSUs can use anywhere from 5 - 20 watts just by being turned on and their efficiency at very low load is usually terrible, the ATX 3.0 specs only require 60% efficiency at 2%.

Afaik Corsair RMx was one of the best, the RMx750 (2021) got 77% efficiency in THG's review and only uses around 5 watts for being on.

but then you are only talking like LED light bulbs worth of difference, which is basically nothing.
Yeah, it only matters for trying to achieve very low load for 24/7, or for cases with compromised cooling.
 
Soldato
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Is this what people are talking about? If so, nothing wrong with idle draw on my AMD CPU. 5w at idle.

Idle.jpg
 
Man of Honour
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Is this what people are talking about? If so, nothing wrong with idle draw on my AMD CPU. 5w at idle.
SoC is part of the CPU so you're technically quite a bit higher than 5 watts. You're doing pretty well though, especially if your memory runs at 6000 rather than 4800.
 
Man of Honour
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Is this what people are talking about? If so, nothing wrong with idle draw on my AMD CPU. 5w at idle.

kXPeFHh.png


:cry:

In all seriousness though even with the performance power plan my 14700K idles well below 4 watt, allowing power saving features it is well below 2 watt on average.
 
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Associate
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For a NAS it's always going to be about complete system tuning and if running dockers its rarely going to be doing nothing, I originally built mine around a 3400g in a b450, it wasn't bad, idle load was about 33w for full system running a few NICs for router and a load of HDDs, with maxxed CPU/GPU load it was 110w, dropping memory speed dropped 5w from idle, switched out the chip for a newer gen 4350GE pro, this took system down to 22w average low load and ~48w at its tdp locked 35w when maxxing it all out, pretty impressive really considering it was more powerful than the 3400g even at that power.

But then I got all power crazed and put an Asrockrack x570 board in with a 5950, 5 NICs and an IPMI that on its own uses 7w :D, yup lets not even talk about its consumption :o :D but suffice to say CPU is just a small part to play in a NAS, if you are trying to go for low watts as all the ancillaries matter.
 
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Soldato
Joined
28 May 2007
Posts
18,326
For a NAS it's always going to be about complete system tuning and if running dockers its rarely going to be doing nothing, I originally built mine around a 3400g in a b450, it wasn't bad, idle load was about 33w for full system running a few NICs for router and a load of HDDs, with maxxed CPU/GPU load it was 110w, dropping memory speed dropped 5w from idle, switched out the chip for a newer gen 4350GE pro, this took system down to 22w average low load and ~48w at its tdp locked 35w when maxxing it all out, pretty impressive really considering it was more powerful than the 3400g even at that power.

But then I got all power crazed and put an Asrockrack x570 board in with a 5950, 5 NICs and an IPMI that on its own uses 7w :D, yup lets not even talk about its consumption :o :D but suffice to say CPU is just a small part to play in a NAS, if you are trying to go for low watts as all the ancillaries matter.

That’s quite a NAS you have. Lots of horsepower.
 
Associate
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5950 is quite efficient and powerful in Eco mode to be fair even with capped all core clock speed, but I don't need all the cores there as I have split out some stuff to what was a redundancy NAS, I have a low 35w TDP chip to switch in, can't remember if it is 4650 or 5650 to scale it down in the drawer, just not got down to it, mostly because I am thinking about dropping the server board for something lower power to go in its place.
 
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Soldato
Joined
28 May 2007
Posts
18,326
5950 is quite efficient and powerful in Eco mode to be fair even with capped all core clock speed, but I don't need all the cores there as I have split out some stuff to what was a redundancy NAS, I have a low 35w TDP chip to switch in, can't remember if it is 4650 or 5650 to scale it down in the drawer, just not got down to it, mostly because I am thinking about dropping the server board for something lower power to go in its place.

IPMI is a useful feature to have. Is that an Asrock Rack board?
 
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Associate
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Yup, this bad boy it's a struggle to move away from to be honest as the integration frees up slots that can be used for pass through to VMs and extra add ins. obviously the integration leads to lower power over all vs having all that stuff with add in cards but happy to drop to 10Gb link, its fast enough, it was only my desktop that got 20Gb anyway rest of the place had to battle over 10Gb, I'm selfish like that :D

Not really used the IPMI for anything other than a BIOS update for an unsupported chip in the couple of years I have had it, I can live without it.
 
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Associate
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They should have a low power mode, but apart from the zero-rpm mode, most don't. ATX PSUs can use anywhere from 5 - 20 watts just by being turned on and their efficiency at very low load is usually terrible, the ATX 3.0 specs only require 60% efficiency at 2%.

Afaik Corsair RMx was one of the best, the RMx750 (2021) got 77% efficiency in THG's review and only uses around 5 watts for being on.


Yeah, it only matters for trying to achieve very low load for 24/7, or for cases with compromised cooling.
I have the RM750e what's the stats with that? I'd look it up myself,but you are clearly more knowledgeable than me.
 
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