How much power does your HTPC consume?

A

af22

Gawd
Joined
Jun 21, 2010
Messages
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Just wanted to get a feel of how much power your HTPC uses.

Mine:

AMD Phenom 2 X3 710
nforce 8300 chipset
6gb DDR2 ram
3 WD Caviar Green HD

Idles @ ~ 70 watts
watching movie ~ 80-90 watts
 
Hehe, my HTPC is just my desktop and I have HDMI and wireless controllers running from my bedroom to my living room.

It's a Core i7 930 @ 4.2Ghz
EVGA X58 board
6GB DDR3
EVGA GTX 480
WD Velociraptor

Measured from the wall with a killowatt.

Idle is ~180w
Watching a movie is ~200w

Gaming... is about 500w :D

Yes, the GTX480 is a power monster, but I use my CPU to decode video so my GPU stays in it's lowest power state at idle or even when watching movies.
My i7 also has C1E and speedstep still enabled and drops to 2.4Ghz @ 1.0v when not utilized much.

I definitely don't leave my PC on all the time. It's only on from 5pm-12pm weekdays and longer on weekends. When I'm not using it, it's either asleep or off and I use Wake on WAN to wake it from my iPhone wherever I may be when I need it.
 
Last edited:
I'm watching EPSN right now and I'm at 239W. Idle would probably be around 200.


AMD Phenom II x4 3.2 @ 3.6Ghz watercooled
8GB Corsair OCZ DDR3
Asus M4A78T
XFX Single slot 5670
2 - HVR 2250 TV tuners
2 Vantec SATA cards
2 OCZ Vertex SSDs in RAID 0
Lite On BR drive
1 - 500 GB drive
3 - 1.5 TB drives
3 - 2 TB drives
650 Watt Corsair PSU
Antec 1200 case


Edit: I don't have a kill-a-watt. I'm going by my backup battery which tells me what the usage is.
 
mines higher than I'd like, pulls about 85w idling, 100w watching a movie. not a lot under load, but I'd prefer to leave it on 24/7

e5200
gigabyte ga-e7aum-ds2h
2x1gb mushkin essentials ddr2
xfx 5550
antec bp550w
2x1tb WD green EADS
1x2tb WD green EARS
ati cablecard tuner
LG bd/hddvd combo drive
 
SirMaster said:
Hehe, my HTPC is just my desktop and I have HDMI and wireless controllers running from my bedroom to my living room.

It's a Core i7 930 @ 4.2Ghz
EVGA X58 board
6GB DDR3
EVGA GTX 480
WD Velociraptor

Measured from the wall with a killowatt.

Idle is ~180w
Watching a movie is ~200w

Gaming... is about 500w :D

Yes, the GTX480 is a power monster, but I use my CPU to decode video so my GPU stays in it's lowest power state at idle or even when watching movies.
My i7 also has C1E and speedstep still enabled and drops to 2.4Ghz @ 1.0v when not utilized much.

I definitely don't leave my PC on all the time. It's only on from 5pm-12pm weekdays and longer on weekends. When I'm not using it, it's either asleep or off and I use Wake on WAN to wake it from my iPhone wherever I may be when I need it.
Click to expand...

my desktop pc is an i7 with the infamous gigabyte x58a-ud3r motherboard that has the coil whine noise when C1E is enabled. after disabling C1, my idle wattage only increased 10-15 watts. 10 watts was worth getting rid of the whine for me =).

what sucks for me is that my 5850 is a power hog because when you run more then one display, it doesn't downclock =(.
 
I have no clue since I dont have a killiwatt, But Its too much.. its packing a Phenom 9150e quad core which is relatively light for a quad.. it still keeps my office where it is at nice & toasty.
 
I think mine was 50/60 with the E5200 and now 60/70 with the E6750.
 
Humm... I have no clue but now I'm curious. I really need to get a killawatt.

E3300, 2GB DDR2800, HD3450, 250GB 7200RPM
 
IronMan77 said:
Humm... I have no clue but now I'm curious. I really need to get a killawatt.

E3300, 2GB DDR2800, HD3450, 250GB 7200RPM
Click to expand...

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882715001

A good Investment in my opinion. You will be surprised at what draws power for no reason.

Now with computers it is a wild game for the most part. What is considered Idle? When at the desktop with no screensaver running? When windows has the display off? What about Hard drive spooling down?

That is why by far it is best to get into the habit of suspending your PC. Dont do it with a timer learn to hit it as you leave for even 10-15 mins! You dont stress a computer going in and out of suspend. (Sleep)
 
I'm curious to know, I'll have to check soon. My HTPC is an odd mix of older parts -- E6400, 8800 GTX, 2 640GB WD AALS drives, 4GB DDR2-800. It's a Shuttle.
 
Now I'm really curious too, and as I'm doing a new build I intend to be careful.
The common thread seems to be a hungry video card. The onboard video users have far lower consumption. Second seems to be a lower wattage cpu, followed by HDD's that sleep easily and quickly.
 
Whatever mine is, it's less than 160W. Because it's PSU is a 160W Delta unit (also because I have used a much more power hogging GPU in this, before):

HP Slimline S3430F
9100e
HD4350 (yep :p)
4GB DDR2
BluRay reader
500GB HDD
160W PSU
 
25w playing 1080p... 35 when you first turn it on.


See sig.




Pretty slow using media center though... really not sure what else to do to speed it up.
 
IronMan77 said:
Humm... I have no clue but now I'm curious. I really need to get a killawatt.

E3300, 2GB DDR2800, HD3450, 250GB 7200RPM
Click to expand...


I don't have an external video card, but everything else is similar... see above.


It doesn't draw much power at all.
 
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