Should ALL Electrical Items be rated, labelled (and checked) for Power Consumption?

Lo debaters.

You all see the way Fridges and Freezers are labelled now. A++, A+ A, B C ratings etc
Ditto a new Oven in the kitchen shop.

If you go to see a new car, it needs ratings, as to it's fuel consumption, and CO2 emmissions.

Light bulbs are rated, and as we all know (and slightly fear) the old styes are coming off sale in the next 2 years.

So should other items be rated? Let's look at PC's.

IF ATI/AMD and nVidia were FORCED to show their power useage on the cards, both 2d and under load.. would it help you to choose better? I know it would for me, because sometimes spending a few quid MORE on a card will easily save me a few quid over 12 months of use.

IF Creative were forced to show the POWER CONSUMED by the cheap speakers that Sair's PC has plugged in, I'd not have brought those... I'd have spent an extra few quid on ones like MINE.. because although her speakers and bass box were awesome value (£10 from memory) they use 3 times as much electricity as my better quality, louder, clearer ones. The power brick provided on hers uses LOADS of electricity.

Monitor specs show power useage :)

So why don't PSU's?

They show theoretical OUTPUTS, so you can judge the unit that you need... but how much do they USE to do it? Some advertise their efficiency now, because they're proud of it... but they're not FORCED to do so.

Would you be prepared to spend MORE money on items, if it gave you better, more factual power useage? On the box.

Personally I would love it see this. But I would want the hard figures for me, and a vague scoring system for the thick :D, if required.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by cptwhite_uk

Personally I would love it see this. But I would want the hard figures for me, and a vague scoring system for the thick :D, if required.

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so a kind of Green, Amber, Red... and then a kWh useage score?

Should we expect the Governement to enforce this kind of thing, or should we expect our hardware providers to .. provide! ?

Consider that the PSU industry still falsify the output rating, I don't suppose manufacturers would put something that will discourage people from buying their products.

Perhaps if we really want to reduce power usage, we should start rationing electricity / fuel so that people will be forced to use less.

And also power consumption of computer parts heavily dependent on how you use it. For example Prime95 doesn't put out maximum heat even though it says 100% CPU load. "Auto" voltage setting also gives more power than needed.

And to be honest about power usage. Unless you live in a very hot country, the excess heat generated by your inefficient appliances could be translated to a reduced gas bill. Unless you don't use heating at all.

If you look at how much gas your boiler use, the 10~50W you save from stand-by, more efficient PSU is like nothing. Nowadays I use my computer for room heating, it is more efficient than my boiler (note: central heating) in keeping my room temperature at about 23'C.

I would say yes, but I've been looking for a new fridge myself and the ratings seem to vary between manufacturers, or at least the way they show their results do, so it's pretty difficult to see what you are actually getting, short of taking it home and plugging it in.

So yes.

Good idea i suppose. The CPU i have now i chose because it uses less energy.

Yes they should. Maybe only Max Power Usage to start with then other levels later.

Yes, probably wont make a massive amount of difference to hardcore gamers but for people like me with systems that sit idle most of the time what it uses when idling would be nice, granted I have a UPS plugged in so I'm probably pulling more power than I really neeed.

Reason I asked you lot is cos when looking at Graphics card reviews, the "tickover" non stressed power drain is key for me.

Same pc for work and gaming, its on a lot, but only gaming a bit... so a label that could be trusted/audited on the box would be ace :)

Would certainly be nice if everything had power usage labels, would make it a lot easier for me to get an idea of what kind of power supply I'm going to be needing if nothing else.

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Originally Posted by Zak33

Would you be prepared to spend MORE money on items, if it gave you better, more factual power useage? On the box.

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Herein lies the problem. As far as PC components are concerned, I do care about power consumption, yet most reviewers now include system power consumptions, and those reviews can be read without costs to me.

And I don't think that power consumption is likely going to affect my decision on things like speakers. I am likely going to go for the best sounding speaker to my ears within my budget than the second best speaker that uses half the power. Power saving and personal satisfaction cancel each other out for me.

I don't think it is necessary to have *all* electrical items rated. I am sure there will be instances where the costs will exceed the value of the information.

Zak's point about the speakers wasn't that Sairs use more power but sound better, they use more power and aren't as good as the slightly more expensive pair he has. So with power ratings on the packaging/website, he would have just bought the slightly more expensive ones in the first place. Regardless of how they sound presumably, as they are just for basic PC sounds I guess.

Hello,
I think its a great idea.
I do wonder how many people would acually read that sort of information?
I know so called "geeks" aka us would research what all the fiqures meant and then decide what card to buy.
Most people wont bother to understand what all the fiqures mean.
here is my idea so that everyone would read it and understand it:
surely if on the nvidia and ati website they had graphs showing how much money a year you could save on electricity when using one card over another people would pause for a moment and have a look?

putting it in to a readable format that everyone can understand and then it is a great idea.
I have never liked the idea of hybrid graphics cards. aka one heavy card for gaming and a basic card when doing word processing and internet. surely even with a unix based OS using an X server you would need to logout to change card?
why not make all cards better? surely the high end cards could scale down and use hardly any juice when not needed and then scale up when needed?

It might be fairly useful to know the average power draw, but i doubt the figures would be that accurate. Most of the stuff i use would vary in power consumption pretty wildly, depending on how i am using them. I'm not sure what other figures they can reliably quote, apart from peak power draw.

I think people should only be allowed to purchase devices that use above 1KWh if they have an up to date, clean, ID card.

It's the only way to curb terrorism.




But in all seriousness though... I'd love to know what wattage a device is and how it stacks up against other products, before I buy it.

The trouble with all Benchmarks and KPI's is that all a company will do is meet the KPI.
An A rated washing machine will get its A rating because it meets the criteria for an A rating - i.e. at ONE WASH PROGRAM (I forget the details but it's something like the 60C light-soiled cottons program) it'll use x + y + z criteria, and get the lauded A rating. The other 64 wash programs the machine might have aren't even considered.
Same for a clothes tumble dryer - 1 drying program will meet the Benchmark, though it'll mean you have to dry your clothes for 16 hours on that one particular program that met the Benchmark and got the machine its A rating. The other drying programs don't meet the A rating requirements, but those are the ones that you use if you don't want to wait a day for your clothes to dry....

Need a Doctors appointment at your GP? Not allowed to wait more than 48 Hours?
Easy - If it's going to take longer than 48 hours, don't let them make an appointment

Need to be seen within 20 minutes of entering an A & E room of a hospital? Order the receptionist to LOOK at each person that enters - you've been "seen"

Need to be seen within 20 minutes of entering an A & E room of a hospital by a qualified medical practitioner? Replace the receptionist by a Nurse - You've been "seen" by a qualified medical practitioner.

Need to be Examined within 20 minutes by a qualified medical practitioner - get the Nurse to walk round and say "Oh that looks bad - it'll be 4 hours before you're treated"

These'll meet the Key Performance Indicators, and get you the Tick on the Performance sheet, but they are totally worthless in the real world. You'll get extra money and Grant status and the Managers will get a nice hefty bonus, but half your patients will die - small cost for ticking all those boxes that prove how Good you are performing.

<rant over>