# Energy consumption of computers and hardware



## AndyP (Apr 11, 2022)

Since energy prices are increasing by leaps and bounds I thought about my devices and how I use them.

Currently I have the following computers:
MacBook Pro 2020 i9 8 core 32 GB RAM
iMac i9 8 core 128 GB RAM
MacPro 2013 12 core 64 GB RAM

MacBook Pro 2013 i7 4 core 16 GB RAM (about to be retired)
MacPro 2010 12 core 96 GB RAM (now retired)
MacPro 2009 6 core 48 GB RAM (now retired)

The two cheese graters have served me well for a very long time, but with the acquisition of the iMac i9, I have hardly used them at all. Both MacPros were VEP slaves. Power consumption was not an issue when electricity prices were cheap, but now I'm glad to have retired them, they cost a fortune.

I bought a power consumption meter and measured all devices in different usage levels. Some of the results surprised me. I would not have thought, for example, that just the use of Remote Desktop on the device to be controlled draws an insane amount of power! If I use NoMachine as a remote control tool, it is significantly less. 

One example:
The MacBook Pro i9 consumes about 15 Wh when it is only turned on. With remote desktop controlled 45 Wh, without me doing anything. Simply through the connection.
If 2 computers are connected via Remote Desktop, 60+ Wh of power consumption are easily added.

Under load it looks different (even more consumption), but the measurement results with a "normal" electricity meter are very inaccurate.

After I have now tried various optimization attempts, I could reduce the consumption of electricity very significantly. Monitors now only run in eco-mode. I never thought about that or touched or changed the settings.

In the meantime, I have provided all devices that I do not need permanently with switchable plug floors and throw out the high power consumers. Also the standby mode pulls some devices neat power from the cans. I will also replace 2 older monitors with new models. I don't do graphics, so they don't have to be expensive.

So I save almost 70€ every month, which is 720€ a year. 

Good for the environment, good for the wallet.
On the one hand, I came up with the low power consumption of the new M1 Macs, and on the other hand, I received a hefty increase in electricity prices.

What are your experiences?


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## d.healey (Apr 11, 2022)

I've thought for years about how much energy we could collectively save if software was written more efficiently. Every wasted CPU cycle is wasted energy.


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## Dietz (Apr 11, 2022)

Great topic. Here's another thought: The thing about "replacing old equipment" is that the most ecologically sound devices are those that don't need to be built at all in the first place ...


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## Learningtomix (Apr 11, 2022)

I have a i7 laptop and an i9 desktop. 

With dramatic energy price rises it looks like the desktop will need to remain powered off most of the time to save money.

It's quite ironic that the cost of assembling a good collection of audio software, particularly plugins, has reduced, at a time when the cost of running computers is seeing a dramatic increase.


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## Loïc D (Apr 11, 2022)

I have a rackmount 1U power switch and I switch off everything every night. Probably not the best for the power supplies but it saves a lot of money. Some devices in "power saving" mode still use a fair lot of power (audio interface, monitors,...). 

That said, the lower power required for recent computers, wide use of LED lighting and the fact that I've dropped most of my analogue stuff have kept my power requirements to a fraction of what I needed 20 years ago.


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## Hans-Peter (Apr 11, 2022)

AndyP said:


> If I use NoMachine as a remote control tool, it is significantly less.


Thanks for pointing out NoMachine. I've been searching for a more efficient VNC on MacOS for quite a while (the built-in one is terrible, does not use GPU-acceleration, and most 3rd-party developers touting their great VNC technology are in fact just wrapping Apple's solution). Finally, my MBP can be remoted as efficiently as my Windows machines. Thanks for that!


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## vitocorleone123 (Apr 16, 2022)

You can also buy tools that measure how much energy is being used - easiest if all routed through the same socket, or a limited number, since the devices aren't free. There may be other things in your home using more power you can cut back on first.

LED and other lower power lighting is an easy place to start, for example.

Ultimately, it all adds up, of course.

I live in the US in a house that’s 113 years old. It’s insulation is minimal, and many windows are original leaded glass or single pane replacement. My i9 computer doesn’t waste as much energy as just heating the home in winter, or leaving fans on 24/7 in summer for weeks. In Europe, with homes that can be hundreds of years old, it can be even worse. But I still power off the computer every night when I’m done with it.


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## thevisi0nary (Apr 16, 2022)

Sorry if this comes off as contrarian because I don't mean it that way, but you're talking cents per day here. A 12900k and a 3090 running full tilt is gonna pull like 700w-800w from the wall and thats the worst case scenario. The configurations and workloads people are using for music or even most gaming setups don't resemble anything like this. You're not saving very much cutting out 100w in your system and you may create more headaches worrying about it. I really don't think eco mode on the monitor is going to do a whole lot for your electric bill. 

If were talking environmental impact, should look at e-waste from unrepairable devices and crypto farms before the composers studio.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Apr 16, 2022)

thevisi0nary said:


> Sorry if this comes off as contrarian because I don't mean it that way, but you're talking cents per day here. A 12900k and a 3090 running full tilt is gonna pull like 700w-800w from the wall and thats the worst case scenario. The configurations and workloads people are using for music or even most gaming setups don't resemble anything like this. You're not saving very much cutting out 100w in your system and you may create more headaches worrying about it. I really don't think eco mode on the monitor is going to do a whole lot for your electric bill.
> 
> If were talking environmental impact, should look at e-waste from unrepairable devices and crypto farms before the composers studio.


For what it’s worth, since ditching and selling my PC slave, (a newer i7 10700k), my bill is about $20 less per month. For me, it made a difference.


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## thevisi0nary (Apr 16, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> For what it’s worth, since ditching and selling my PC slave, (a newer i7 10700k), my bill is about $20 less per month. For me, it made a difference.


This is kind of my point actually, you needed to eliminate an entire 2nd computer from your system to save just $20.


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## Jeremy Spencer (Apr 16, 2022)

thevisi0nary said:


> This is kind of my point actually, you needed to eliminate an entire 2nd computer from your system to save just $20.


We’ll, that’s $240 a year to run a computer I didn’t actually need anymore. Every dollar counts.


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## thevisi0nary (Apr 17, 2022)

Jeremy Spencer said:


> We’ll, that’s $240 a year to run a computer I didn’t actually need anymore. Every dollar counts.


I’m saying short of eliminating an entire computer from your set up you aren’t going to be reducing your bill by that much a month. You likely also didn’t spend $xxxx to replace that system so you could save $20 a month on your electric bill.


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## Saxer (Apr 17, 2022)

thevisi0nary said:


> If were talking environmental impact, should look at e-waste from unrepairable devices and crypto farms before the composers studio.


This way of thinking that "if others don't reduce energy waisting I don't even need to start" is the main obstacle. First the cryptos and the Chinese and the car industry and the shop lights and all... that way it's never getting better.


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## Henrik B. Jensen (Apr 17, 2022)

Saxer said:


> This way of thinking that "if others don't reduce energy waisting I don't even need to start" is the main obstacle. First the cryptos and the Chinese and the car industry and the shop lights and all... that way it's never getting better.


It's all about keeping perspective. I'm one of 5.7 million Danes. If every single citizen in my country turns up the heat all year round, it would hardly even register on how much energy was used globally that year.


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## thevisi0nary (Apr 17, 2022)

Saxer said:


> This way of thinking that "if others don't reduce energy waisting I don't even need to start" is the main obstacle. First the cryptos and the Chinese and the car industry and the shop lights and all... that way it's never getting better.



100% everyone should have a proactive attitude, but cutting 200 watts off your monthly power budget isn’t making you an environmentalist lol. 





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Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, study says | Guardian sustainable business | The Guardian


A relatively small number of fossil fuel producers and their investors could hold the key to tackling climate change




amp.theguardian.com


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## AndyP (Apr 17, 2022)

My main point here was not to show how much I can save by simply discarding / eliminating computers.
It is also about my "consumption behavior". Old computers with many cores, large graphics card, strong power supplies consume a lot of energy and with the appearance of the new M1 Macs I thought for the first time about the difference in power consumption.

I'm not interested in saving just for the sake of saving, but how I can optimize my setup and still save.
A monitor in eco mode might only make a difference of 10 watts on older models, but if you use more of them then it adds up. That may be penny amounts, but in the sum of all devices I comes together quite a bit. And in eco mode, the picture is still very good (at least here).

When I buy new hardware, e.g. monitors, I pay attention to the consumption from now on. I just replaced a Samsung 24" against a new model. From 50 watts to 20 watts makes a big difference (and the new monitor is better).

When my iMac is running as a VEP slave, I turn the monitor brightness down to a minimum, it's in a different room than my DAW anyway, so it only runs remotely.
Originally I used my iMac as DAW, but now I often use it as slave. Turning the brightness down to minimum saves more than I thought. The iMac is as much a candidate for a Mac M1 replacement as the MacPro trash can. Whereby it can happen that one of them is not replaced anymore. Depends a bit on what the M2 generation will offer or I will switch to a Mac Studio after all. 

I did it similarly in my household. Energy saving lamps, timers where it made sense etc.

It's a lot of little things that save enough over the year for some great new tools, or sample libraries. Money that I have given away unnecessarily before.

And it helps the environment, the less energy we waste, the less CO2 we produce. Again, that adds up if you include all households.

I will gradually switch to M1 Macs. I'm convinced by the concept, the performance is right and they consume significantly less energy. Well, they are not cheap, but you get good value for money. My biggest criticism is that I can't upgrade them myself and Apple takes horrendous prices for memory. But I use external hard drives anyway and for RAM I have to bite the bullet, because with 16 or 32 GB I do not get so far.

And the approach, "do I really still need it?" I also find good. Why not give up devices that you don't use at all or rarely? If I buy a new computer, then I consider equipping it so that I can save VEP slaves. 
New devices cost money, not everyone has the money for it, that is also clear. And if it's just about saving money, the long-term use of devices is probably still cheaper (when it comes to consumption, you have to do a calculation, which can still be worthwhile). 

My savings are already about 700€ per year without giving up anything. Little effort, great yield, and only with existing hardware. What surprised me the most was how little I had dealt with the topic and how much potential there is in it.


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## thevisi0nary (Apr 17, 2022)

AndyP said:


> My savings are already about 700€ per year without giving up anything. Little effort, great yield, and only with existing hardware. What surprised me the most was how little I had dealt with the topic and how much potential there is in it.


This would be the equivalent of having a higher end gaming rig running full tilt and pulling 600w from the wall 24/7 a day. You would have needed to cut out an extraordinary amount to see those kind of savings (not saying you didn’t). The other guy cut an entire computer out of his system and saw $20 less a month on his bill, so if you’re saving 700 euros a year now you were using a ton of power. 

I dont want to come off as being against being proactive with reducing the power footprint, it’s really the opposite and I agree with a lot of what you’re saying. It just a topic I’m interested in and I think there’s a lot of misinformation about what power consumption looks like in reality and where most of it comes from. 

People can save a ton of money by just turning things off when they’re not using them or when they leave the house.


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## MartinH. (Apr 17, 2022)

Great thread! It reminded my that I had the power supply of my electric sit/stand desk still plugged in, which is a ridiculous power drain considering I never use it. It drew something like 8w or so when I measured it a week ago, totally inefficient. If I ever want to use it again regularly, I need to rethink the cabling here so that I can more easily switch it off without unplugging. That goes for all powersupplies really. I always have something plugged in and actually charging, but I'm not good with umplugging the chargers that I don't need.

I replaced my 10 year old PC recently and went with AMD for better energy efficiency, and wow... it draws about 40-50w less during idle (savings of around 40%). Under audio processing load, it's probably about 1/2 to 1/3 of what the old PC needed to get the same amount of fx running, but I didn't measure. 

At the old energy prices 40w savings on my desktop PC is roughly 65€ per year, and I expect those prices to at least tripple in the near future. Over 10 years that's financially worth thinking about for sure.
I wouldn't buy a new PC just to save a bit more energy of course, but if you're buying something new anyway, might as well think about the environmental impact of the longterm energy consumption. 

Does anyone know what the lowest power consumption 22" or 24" 16:10 screens are?


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## KEM (Apr 17, 2022)

Apple Silicon consumes way less power, I’ve never looked at how much power I consume though because I still live at home and my parents pay the electric bill, but I’m sure their lives will be easier now


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## proxima (Apr 17, 2022)

I'm glad you started with a watt meter. It's easy to hit diminishing returns and create hassle by chasing power savings. One minor quibble with language: "W" = "watts" is the measure of power. "Wh" = "watt hour" is the energy consumed over time (in an hour). So your macbook pro consumes 15W when on, and if you left it on for an hour, it'd consume 15Wh. 

One thing you left out though was heat: if you live somewhere warm and air-conditioned, it's costing you even more money to get rid of that heat. If you live somewhere where the heat is nice bonus, it's effectively a space heater (which is to say, converts electricity to heat at close to 100% efficiency, but still less efficiently than a heat pump and likely more expensive than natural gas/fuel oil, though that latter calculation depends on your particular utility bills).

On the other end of the spectrum of usefulness, anyone remember Blackle? Absolutely ridiculous, and only really applied to CRTs in any remotely noticeable way.


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## nonstatic (Apr 19, 2022)

Where I live, electricity rates went up 40% during 2021 alone. Every cent counts, and the current situation (no pun intended) over here in the EU does not bode well for future energy cost hikes. I bought a consumption meter and found out a pair of old computer speakers were drawing 7W when turned off. That alone saved me 5 bucks a month on my energy bill. Significant if you're operating on a tight income but ymmv.


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## quickbrownf0x (Apr 19, 2022)

My laziness trumps a lot of things, including energy consumption, rates or the environment.  The idea of having to switch on all my machines and reload my templates every morning.... that's a show-stopper right there. 🤭


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## MartinH. (Apr 19, 2022)

nonstatic said:


> I bought a consumption meter and found out a pair of old computer speakers were drawing 7W when turned off. That alone saved me 5 bucks a month on my energy bill. Significant if you're operating on a tight income but ymmv.


How exactly did you calculate that 5$ saving and what do you pay per kWh? The number feels off to me.


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## thevisi0nary (Apr 19, 2022)

MartinH. said:


> How exactly did you calculate that 5$ saving and what do you pay per kWh? The number feels off to me.


It’s way off lol, if they’re in the Uk it would be closer to $1.50 equivalent or $2 and change in London where Kwh prices are higher


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## nonstatic (Apr 19, 2022)

Yes, I should've been more precise. I had originally (several months ago) calculated the cost difference to include the average amount of hours when the speakers were also turned on. The consumption there was 42W vs 28W. Mind you, this was the same speaker model (Creative Gigaworks T20 II). They have changed the power supply twice during its run thus far, with each later revision becoming more efficient due to EU power/standby requirements becoming more strict.

I currently pay around 35 cents per kWh (likely to continue rising!) so yes, it's around 2 eur per month by standby alone. Apologies for the lack of clarity there.

For studio computer builds, I have always worked to find the best balance between efficiency and performance, though admittedly that is less about my electric bill and more about generating less heat, which in turn generates less noise. I chose a 3700x for my last build with that in mind. I keep a rackmount Furman and shut everything off with a single switch when the studio isn't in use, as someone else mentioned.

In general, though, I bought the consumption meter because my electric bill is through the roof from even 5 years ago without any significant change in my consumption, so I wanted to see if there was anything I could do on my end.


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## thevisi0nary (Apr 19, 2022)

nonstatic said:


> Yes, I should've been more precise. I had originally (several months ago) calculated the cost difference to include the average amount of hours when the speakers were also turned on. The consumption there was 42W vs 28W. Mind you, this was the same speaker model (Creative Gigaworks T20 II). They have changed the power supply twice during its run thus far, with each later revision becoming more efficient due to EU power/standby requirements becoming more strict.
> 
> I currently pay around 35 cents per kWh (likely to continue rising!) so yes, it's around 2 eur per month by standby alone. Apologies for the lack of clarity there.
> 
> ...


Crazy how much more power costs in Europe vs US, it’s nearly double in some places.

What sucks is that the highest sources of power usually come from quality of life things like heat and ac. I don’t mind turning devices and lights on/off frequently but I absolutely can’t sleep or relax if it’s too hot.


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