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Thread: How to reduce power consumption from overclocked cpu when idling

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    • en3sge's system
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    How to reduce power consumption from overclocked cpu when idling

    I bought my PC from scan well over a year ago and it is still running smooth and fast (p.s. looking fwd to buying the GTX 780 from you guys when it arrives as my GTX 580 is starting to wheeze on a few demanding games now...).

    Anyway a thought occured to me the other day - is the processor (i7 2600K) running at 4.7Ghz (as it was overclocked by SCAN) constantly even when I am browsing the web etc?

    I looked at my BIOS setting (for MB Gigabyte Z68MX-UD2H-B3) and found two settings:

    1) CPU Enhanced Halt (C/E)
    2) C6 State Support

    Both disabled and both appear to offer idling power saving functions. So my question is this: can I select one of these to make my cpu downclock when doing non-intensive tasks and thus save power? If so, which one? And if I do enable these, will it affect my overclock performance?

    Thanks!

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    • phil4's system
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    Re: How to reduce power consumption from overclocked cpu when idling

    Hi, if you run http://www.cpuid.com/softwares/cpu-z.html and watch the core speed you'll see that when you're not doing much, the CPU runs down at 1.6Ghz, and then quickly ramps up to the 4.7 when needed.

    Rather than turn on those BIOS functions you mention, you might save more money by ditching the 580 and using the CPU's graphics chip. Likewise if the motherboard has sound and you have a separate sound card. And then if you're really worried, knock the overclocking on the head, and run it at the lowest settings all the time.

    What I think I'm trying to say is that it seems you have a pretty meaty PC, and so sounds a bit like a Ferrari driver asking how he can up his MPG. I don't think you'll be able to keep much of the performance you want, without using quite a lot of juice, as such any savings you make when the PC is idle will probably be blown away when everything ramps up for your fave game.

    That's just my opinion, and not entirely factually based (ie. I've not measured each component and calculated out net effects), so do take with a pinch of salt.

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    • en3sge's system
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    Re: How to reduce power consumption from overclocked cpu when idling

    Thanks for your reply but I think you might have misread my post slightly.

    I understand that running games full throttle will mean full power. Thats no problem. My question is when I am not doing intensive tasks - I wanted to know if my overclocked cpu will throttle itself down like a normal standard processor (like the ones you find on modern processors - speedstep and the like). And if so, how to do this?

    I have CPUZ installed and it does quote the core speed as 4.7Ghz all the time. Web browsing, gaming and just about everything. Which seems like an awful waste when just doing small tasks. So instead of booting out to BIOS at the end of every gaming session I wondered if there was a function to auto downclock the cpu.

    So in summary, Im not going to throw away my GTX 580!

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    Re: How to reduce power consumption from overclocked cpu when idling

    Quote Originally Posted by en3sge View Post
    My question is when I am not doing intensive tasks - I wanted to know if my overclocked cpu will throttle itself down like a normal standard processor (like the ones you find on modern processors - speedstep and the like). And if so, how to do this?
    You'll find the power throttling features your looking for would of been disabled by scan for overclocking your CPU mainly because they can cause instability resulting in more voltage needed to actually get the CPU stable for 24/7 usage.

    Long story short you'll either have to reset your bios to optimized defaults and drop your overclock for power savings or enable the features manually and then spend the next few days testing and increasing the voltage to stop the system crashing during power shifts.

    In my opinion you shouldnt worry about your idle power usage..

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    Re: How to reduce power consumption from overclocked cpu when idling

    While one of my systems is pretty much the same as yours (2600K @ 4.7, 580GTX etc), looks like we have slightly different settings, as my CPU definitely drops to 1.6Ghz when not in use (are you sure there aren't background tasks running?).

    Regardless, as I think I was trying to say, and I'll try and quantify a little more, I mirror what Iain is suggesting, don't worry about it.

    If we consider the 2600K in stock form, the you should expect 144W of usage at full steam ahead. If idling that drops to 64W.

    So 80W difference. What I think I and others are suggesting is that dwarfed by other insufficiencies in your PC. That said if you leave the PC on 24/7, and your electricity costs you 15p per KWh, then cost is around 30p per day. Trade that against lost time/work if you introduce instability and crashes by turning on settings that Scan have turned off. I'd look instead to turn the PC off if it's not being used as the best solution.

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    • Iain162's system
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    Re: How to reduce power consumption from overclocked cpu when idling

    I have the 3570K not a great CPU to compare against yours but my motherboard disabled my power saving features automatically after overclocking.

    If coretemp is to be believed ( which im not saying it is.. ) its claiming my CPU is using between 13w idle to 81w under x64 AVX capable linpack stressing, without any throttling at 4.5Ghz.

    So even if your running 4.7 constantly your power comsumption wont be at a set amount, its more to do with the current drawn than actual frequency and voltage, granted they can reduce power comsumption further but unless you want to be messing with voltage or lose your overclock and go back to higher levels of power throttling and intel's turbo boost system theres not a lot you can do.

  7. #7
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    Re: How to reduce power consumption from overclocked cpu when idling

    Hi

    If you are wanting to save power when not doing anything intensive our 3XS-Standard bios profiles have the required settings :-)

    Gigabyte Motherboards X58s and Earlier
    *******************
    Press Del to enter Setup as the system starts
    Press F12 on the main screen and Select the following
    Profile 1 - Standard
    Profile 2 - Overclocked

    Gigabyte Motherboards - Newest EFI Bios Boards (Z77 upwards)
    *******************
    Press Del to enter Setup as the system starts
    Highlight the Exit section and load the appropriate profile you require
    Profile 1 - Standard
    Profile 2 - Overclocked

    Asus Motherboards - All
    ***************
    Restart the system and Tap Del to enter the bios

    Goto Tools
    Asus OC Profile

    Load from Profile (Press Enter) select 2 (For Overclock)
    or Load from Profile 1 for Standard Non Overclocked Settings
    Press Esc then F10 and Save the settings and exit

    If you have any external drives, USB flash drives etc please unplug these prior to allowing the system to reboot as these can alter the boot sequence so if in doubt only have plugged in what was first setup here at Scan.

    You can use any power saving profile in windows in the standard profile, just remember to change it back if you load the overclocked one

    Regards

    Ben

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    • en3sge's system
      • Motherboard:
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      • CPU:
      • Intel 2600k @ 4.7Ghz
      • Memory:
      • 8.00Gb 1600Mhz RAM
      • Storage:
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      • Nvidia GTX 580 MSI Lightning O/C
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    Re: How to reduce power consumption from overclocked cpu when idling

    Thanks everyone for your replies.

    In summary then this seems to be what everyone is saying:

    1) If I want to run an overclocked setting (which I do) then speedstep features are disabled so they don't interfere with the overclock stability
    2) Electricity consumption won't be a big deal when idling even at an overclock setting
    3) I could use a power saving mode in windows but I have to load a standard clock setting

    Ok, I think I can live with this.

    Iain162 how do you measure the power usage of your CPU when in Windows etc? CPUz quotes Max TDP of 95W as I type. Is this the power consumption at idle then? As thats quite high actually!

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    • Iain162's system
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      • Memory:
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    Re: How to reduce power consumption from overclocked cpu when idling

    Taken from wikipedia..
    " The thermal design power (TDP), sometimes called thermal design point, refers to the maximum amount of power the cooling system in a computer is required to dissipate. "
    That's while at stock settings so you can ignore that.

    My power usage figures were taken from coretemp, i have no idea how accurate it is but it was just to show that power comsumption doesnt stay at a constant level when power saving features are disabled.



    Being able to see power usage in coretemp may be an ivy bridge feature im not sure, the last time i used it was on a Phenom X6 about 3 years ago and dont remember seeing this information back then.
    Last edited by Iain162; 05-01-2013 at 04:34 AM.

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