x5650 drawing more at wall than i7-930 - Is this right???

[BlueScream]

Just swapped out my i7-930 (TDP 130) and put in a Xeon 5650 (TDP 95).

Rest of system, including motherboard, is exactly the same apart from I also swapped out the stock cooler from the i7, and put in a Hyper 212 Evo with the xeon.

I kind of expected the latter to draw less power at the wall, but it doesn't it draws more, and I'm confused.

Is this something everyone else would have expected?? I think somewhere along the way I really misunderstood TDP's influence on power draw??

[peterb]

What are the before and after figures? How are you measuring it?

[kalniel]

Also: What voltage is it set to in BIOS? What power saving options were active on both? And what load are you measuring?

TDP often has very little relation to real work power draw and it could be that various power saving options were enabled for the 930 that aren't on by default for the Xeon.

More likely though you're just finding 6 cores are more hungry than 4, even if they are 32nm.

[BlueScream]

What are the before and after figures? How are you measuring it?

Thanks,

I'm just measuring it with a belkin meter that plugs into the socket, and then the PC power lead plugs into that.

At 'practically idle' it's increased from ~145 to ~155, and using handbrake it's increased from ~175 to ~205.

Also: What voltage is it set to in BIOS? What power saving options were active on both? And what load are you measuring?

TDP often has very little relation to real work power draw and it could be that various power saving options were enabled for the 930 that aren't on by default for the Xeon.

More likely though you're just finding 6 cores are more hungry than 4, even if they are 32nm.

Thanks,

I'd not looked at this. I think I turned most if not all of the power saving stuff off for the i7-930 and assumed it would have stayed the same for the x5650. I should probably root around the bios though .. will do so later.

Have noticed the RAM now works at 1333 rather than 1066 because this processor supports the higher value. Don't know if that can be responsible for some of the idle increase.

Neither were/are overclocked at all. I'm suspecting the bit I bolded from your post is much of the answer, and am feeling a bit naive for not expecting this, but you live and learn and the difference is not so much a big problem, more initially unexpected and confusing.

[Biscuit]

Thanks,

I'm just measuring it with a belkin meter that plugs into the socket, and then the PC power lead plugs into that.

At 'practically idle' it's increased from ~145 to ~155, and using handbrake it's increased from ~175 to ~205.



Thanks,

I'd not looked at this. I think I turned most if not all of the power saving stuff off for the i7-930 and assumed it would have stayed the same for the x5650. I should probably root around the bios though .. will do so later.

Have noticed the RAM now works at 1333 rather than 1066 because this processor supports the higher value. Don't know if that can be responsible for some of the idle increase.

Neither were/are overclocked at all. I'm suspecting the bit I bolded from your post is much of the answer, and am feeling a bit naive for not expecting this, but you live and learn and the difference is not so much a big problem, more initially unexpected and confusing.

If possible, perhaps you can save your current bios settings as a profile and reset it back to factory default then work from there?

[BlueScream]

Just to update after turning on the power saving options in the bios the draw at the wall has dropped to ~135 idle. Not as higher drop as I was hoping for from the processor upgrade but a little something nonetheless. Might be of use to someone else in the future to know that the power draw between the two is relatively similar.

Temps on the xeon are much better than for the i7-930, but it's hard to know if that was because I upgraded the cooler. Can't be bothered switching them out to find out, things are working as I want so am now going to leave it all well alone