Hi!

Recently I bought a “used” Wattmeter (it was new but I find it for 0.50€ at a flea market), the one that comes with a small display and is plugged into the wall to calculate the wattage consumption and it’s costs.
Here it’s, together with my Wifi range extender:

IMG_20170810_201018

To that Wattmeter is plugged everything that’s on my desk, this include:

  • Desktop PC (3 HDD, Razer Keyboard, TurtleBeach PX SoundCard)
  • Monitor (Benq GL2450)
  • Active Speakers (Microlab Solo6C)
  • Alarm Clock
  • Phone Charger (Meizu M2note)
  • Desk Lamp with a 3W led lamp

Today I decided to take some measurements and I find out something I wasn’t expecting…

Before showing the results I’ll like to say that this is just a short post.
Soon I’m going to repeat the measuring more in-depth, by including costs, kW/h, more demanding benchmarks and so on.
Please keep in mind that these are measurements made with a household product, the measurements can be approximate although I have to say that the meter was very constant.

Ok let’s start from the highest measurements I got.
Also worth notice that Alarm Clock, Phone Charger (with no phone plugged) and the Monitor in stand-by were consuming 0W

Gaming (PC, Monitor, Speakers ON; else OFF):

  • Here is the max Wattage I got. I was running Tomb Raider (2013) Benchmark while recording at 60fps with SimpleScreenRecorder:

IMG_20170810_174958

  • Here the Benchmark with no recordings:

IMG_20170810_174911

Video Watching (same as above):

  • Watching a 720p video resized to 1080p fullscreen:

IMG_20170810_175830

  • Same video but windowed at the original size (720p):

IMG_20170810_180405

I was watching the youtube video with mpv, the consume is the same also by watching it with a browser, but the PC initially peaks at higher Watts because the CPU has to process the webpage, scripts, etc.

Idle PC (same as above, then I turned off the active speakers):

  • I’m running Linux with a pretty minimal interface (i3 Window Manager, no Desktop environment).
    The PC at idle was consuming 117W both when it was running i3 with the Chromium browser open or when there was no X session active.

IMG_20170810_175530

  • At this point I turned off the speakers:

IMG_20170810_175252

These speakers consume 7-8W regardless if any sound is playing or they’re in stand-by mode.

Suspend the PC (same as above)

  • I did what I normally do when I go out and my PC is on, I suspend it and put the speakers in “stand-by mode” (my ass…):

IMG_20170810_180719

  • At this point I turned off the speakers:

IMG_20170810_180850

Turning off the PC (all OFF):

  • I was expecting the PC to consume less when suspended, so I turned it off but it didn’t change much.

IMG_20170810_180902

  • To get it to zero I have to turn the Power Supply OFF:

IMG_20170810_181414

Conclusions:

  • Here is how much my Led Lamp is consuming, this means that it consumes less than my PC suspended/turned-off and 2 times less than my speakers in “stand-by”…

IMG_20170810_181650

  • My Phone, that has a 5,5″ display, is consuming around 7-8W under charge, regardless of what I’m doing with it (it’ll just take longer to charge).
    This means that I can watch the same 720p video on my phone for 0W, or 8W if charging, versus the ~130W on my desktop PC.

In the meantime while waiting Tesla’s free energy to be rediscovered, I guess I’ll turn off my PC more often and maybe start watching more stuff with my Phone (always by using RedMoon).

A more in-depth post will come soon :)

TA SALÜDE