Thank You!!!!

Fun to try to calculate....I would trust an average Kill-a-Watt actual measurement (or other hardware device like a Brultech) over a calculation any day.

As you can see from the dialouge, lots of issues and misunderstandings (and inaccuracies) of ratings.

Actually, that sounds like a challenge...someone with a killawatt be the monitor....tell us what your PC specs are, and how you are using it and let everyone try to make a calculation. Go three months and tell us the actuals and the winner gets pride, glory and envy from his peers :)
 
Yea, trying to calculate usage off specs is an exercise in futility. And calculating energy usage based on maximum rating of PS is equally ineffective. IIRC the last time I stuck my Kill A Watt on a HA PC it was drawing around 170W fully loaded and processing away, and that was on something like a 500W PS. Most modern HA servers running something like CQC or Elve or probably even HS could run just fine on a low power Atom based device.
 
I never said the shuttle xpc uses 250w at all times.
Like many have posted the only way to know your actual usage would be attaching the pc to an energy monitoring device.
what i stated is that a mac mini using an intel processor is capable of using maximum 85 watts, meaning that apple and intel managed to so some pretty good energy management inside.
if he is looking for a box regardless of who makes it that could cost him the least per watt dollar to run then very few small form factor computers can deliver both energy savings and great computing power.
one thing i would not do is sacrifice performance just to get some cheap barebones under power computer because your critical HA software depends on that hardware.
 
Hrm - why would anyone spend $600 on a mac mini just to put Windows on it? I'd go with an EeeBox all the way. You don't need graphics processing for an automation PC.

This thread has gone WAY off topic... worrying about energy efficiency to this extent... the real question is, what's the ROI of going with a new PC over what he already has? 1 - he has the pc in his hands; 2 - no having to discuss with the wife buying a PC for something she doesn't understand (I hear lots of people deal with that one), and seriously - to ditch what he already has to go get an ultra-efficient PC - the ROI would be at least 3 years. Assuming he doesn't run 6 hard drives, powers off the monitor, and has the thing basically sleeping all the time (CQC won't max it out) - it won't consume enough power to justify all this. Worst case, if it's a really inefficient power supply, spend $50 replacing that! but I'd never even do that.

Format the computer you have - put whatever you want on it - play around and have some fun - and if at some point you really make progress and have some reason to screw with it (extra money, high utility bills, whatever) - deal with it then.

I also agree that all this speculation is insane... so many variables go into how much actual power is consumed - from how much the processor is being used, how efficient the RAM is, what hard drives are installed, if they sleep at all; if the monitor is on or off or unplugged; without a Kill-A-Watt this is like guessing how many jelly beans are in the jar. Something as simple as what antivirus software/settings are being used can impact the power consumption.
 
i agree with you work2play....
i was suggesting the mini simply because the maximum power usage rated at 85 watt
also because it could be used not only for his HA but also as a media center or network area storage or home file server etc...
in the end like you said, if he has a pc already just use it and play with it and see how it goes
 
Back
Top