picopsu 90 enough for i3+dh57jg?

PSUs: The source of DC power for all components in the PC & often a big noise source.

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zansiball
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picopsu 90 enough for i3+dh57jg?

Post by zansiball » Wed Jun 09, 2010 7:35 am

i got a a intel dh57jg motherboard, ssd and a i3 cpu and im thinking of using a picopsu90 that i got. but i dont know if it will be enough to power the whole thing. anyone have a idea?

ilovejedd
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Post by ilovejedd » Wed Jun 09, 2010 10:49 am

Sure, that's enough. I have figures posted in the forum somewhere but I'm on the iPhone and it's a bit of a pain to use.

Namheul
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Post by Namheul » Wed Jun 09, 2010 5:26 pm

At max CPU + GPU load, it will use more than 90W.

Not very scientific, but i had an old 102W power brick for my 150W picoPSU, and it had a fan that turns on at 90W load. The fan would sometimes turn on when i was encoding videos (which wasnt even constant 100% CPU, and 0% GPU). I would want at least the 120W pico.

Also, the 90W wouldnt have a P4 connector or a 24pin connector would it?

ilovejedd
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Post by ilovejedd » Wed Jun 09, 2010 6:37 pm

Namheul wrote:At max CPU + GPU load, it will use more than 90W.
Not really. Mine uses 80W from the wall during IBT+Furmark. That's with a 3.5" HDD, too.

greenfrank
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Post by greenfrank » Thu Jun 10, 2010 12:02 pm

a PICO-120w will be safer.

ilovejedd
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Post by ilovejedd » Thu Jun 10, 2010 12:49 pm

greenfrank wrote:a PICO-120w will be safer.
+1.

zansiball
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Post by zansiball » Thu Jun 10, 2010 2:47 pm

greenfrank wrote:a PICO-120w will be safer.
the thing is that i allready own a picopsu90 that i could use with my cpu and motherboard.

elpibe10
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Post by elpibe10 » Thu Jun 10, 2010 4:02 pm

zansiball wrote:
greenfrank wrote:a PICO-120w will be safer.
the thing is that i allready own a picopsu90 that i could use with my cpu and motherboard.
90W PicoPSU is definitely enough. Here's mine :

Image

Image

Idle @ 29.5W. Max load at 70W.

Full specs on my site :

http://www.freewebs.com/elpibe10/

ilovejedd
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Post by ilovejedd » Thu Jun 10, 2010 8:37 pm

elpibe10 wrote:Max load at 70W.
That's CPU only, though, right?

Found my power consumption values:
ilovejedd wrote:Silverstone Sugo SG06B (300W SFX PSU)
Intel DH57JG
Intel Core i3-530 2.93GHz
Kingston 2x2GB DDR3 1333 CL9 1.5V
Western Digital Caviar GP 1TB WD10EADS
ilovejedd wrote:boot: 55W
idle: 30W
CPU Load: 70W
GPU Load: 45W
CPU+GPU Load: 80W

elpibe10
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Post by elpibe10 » Fri Jun 11, 2010 12:10 am

ilovejedd wrote:
elpibe10 wrote:Max load at 70W.
That's CPU only, though, right?
No, that's CPU+GPU.

Are your figures correct ? There's no way you can get 30W idle with a 300W PSU unless it's 80 PLUS Gold or Platinum.

I've tested mine with a Seasonic S12II-330 Bronze and idle on the same machine is in the low 40s (Watt).

zansiball
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Post by zansiball » Sat Jun 12, 2010 12:57 pm

elpibe10 wrote:90W PicoPSU is definitely enough.

Idle @ 29.5W. Max load at 70W.
what kind of converter do you have with the picopsu90? is it a 80watt?

elpibe10
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Post by elpibe10 » Sat Jun 12, 2010 4:04 pm

zansiball wrote:
elpibe10 wrote:90W PicoPSU is definitely enough.

Idle @ 29.5W. Max load at 70W.
what kind of converter do you have with the picopsu90? is it a 80watt?
90W AC/DC adapter.

I prefer matching ones just like my other 120W and 150W PicoPSU's.

Redzo
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Post by Redzo » Sat Jun 12, 2010 4:29 pm

elpibe10 wrote:
zansiball wrote:
greenfrank wrote:a PICO-120w will be safer.
the thing is that i allready own a picopsu90 that i could use with my cpu and motherboard.
90W PicoPSU is definitely enough. Here's mine :

Image

Image

Idle @ 29.5W. Max load at 70W.

Full specs on my site :

http://www.freewebs.com/elpibe10/
It will work but don't forget that as PSU get older its output will decrease with time. To run a system where on full load you already use 80% or more is to ask for trouble.

ilovejedd
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Post by ilovejedd » Sat Jun 12, 2010 6:10 pm

elpibe10 wrote:Are your figures correct ? There's no way you can get 30W idle with a 300W PSU unless it's 80 PLUS Gold or Platinum.

I've tested mine with a Seasonic S12II-330 Bronze and idle on the same machine is in the low 40s (Watt).
Huh, that's interesting. I would have thought the SeaSonic S12II would have better efficiency. It's possible it might just be because of different parts - e.g. motherboard, no optical drive in my build, etc. Also, are you sure you're getting 40W totally idle? Even Tom's was able to get 25W using a 220W PSU and a notebook HDD.

Heck, they got 30W idle with the following parts:
Motherboard: Zotac H55 ITX-WiFi
CPU: Intel Core i3-530
RAM: 2 x 2GB DDR3-1333 (OCZ3G2000LV4GK 8-8-8-24)
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.11, 500GB (ST3500320AS)
Power Supply: PC Power & Cooling, Silencer 750EPS12V 750W

I know there's someone in this forum who got 21W idle on their Clarkdale build.

elpibe10
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Post by elpibe10 » Sun Jun 13, 2010 4:15 am

ilovejedd wrote:Huh, that's interesting. I would have thought the SeaSonic S12II would have better efficiency. It's possible it might just be because of different parts - e.g. motherboard, no optical drive in my build, etc. Also, are you sure you're getting 40W totally idle? Even Tom's was able to get 25W using a 220W PSU and a notebook HDD.

Heck, they got 30W idle with the following parts:
Motherboard: Zotac H55 ITX-WiFi
CPU: Intel Core i3-530
RAM: 2 x 2GB DDR3-1333 (OCZ3G2000LV4GK 8-8-8-24)
Hard Drive: Seagate Barracuda 7200.11, 500GB (ST3500320AS)
Power Supply: PC Power & Cooling, Silencer 750EPS12V 750W

I know there's someone in this forum who got 21W idle on their Clarkdale build.
To make matters worse, I'm on 230V here which is more efficient than the 110V in North Armerica. :(

Anyway, here's my configuration :

Motherboard: Zotac H55 ITX-WiFi
CPU: Intel Core i3-530
RAM: 2 x 2GB DDR3-1333 (Crucial Value CL9 1.5V)
Hard Drive: Intel 40GB SSD & WD Scorpio Blue 120GB
Power Supply: 90W PicoPSU with 90W AC/DC Adapter

Optical drive doesn't consume a lot. I suspect it could be due to the way the operating system is configured prior to testing.

For me, I'll just leave Win 7 the same as how I'd use it, i.e. with Aero enabled, sidebar gadgets running, etc. and just leave the system idle until the CPU Usage consistently shows 0%.

IMO, it's pointless to disable everything just to hit a world record low (in terms of power consumption) as that wouldn't represent any real world usage.

BTW, I'm using a Watt Meter that's connected to the wall socket. If anyone is reporting consumption based on figures from HWMonitor or any software, then I'm sure it's totally off (it's a lot lower).

elpibe10
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Post by elpibe10 » Sun Jun 13, 2010 4:17 am

Redzo wrote:It will work but don't forget that as PSU get older its output will decrease with time. To run a system where on full load you already use 80% or more is to ask for trouble.
I'll take that risk for the sake of mother earth as the watts saved is more than worth it. :wink:

ilovejedd
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Post by ilovejedd » Sun Jun 13, 2010 7:09 am

elpibe10 wrote:Motherboard: Zotac H55 ITX-WiFi
CPU: Intel Core i3-530
RAM: 2 x 2GB DDR3-1333 (Crucial Value CL9 1.5V)
Hard Drive: Intel 40GB SSD & WD Scorpio Blue 120GB
Power Supply: 90W PicoPSU with 90W AC/DC Adapter
From what I notice, most are using a Kill-A-Watt to measure power consumption. Just a thought, do you have C1E and EIST enabled?

elpibe10
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Post by elpibe10 » Sun Jun 13, 2010 4:13 pm

ilovejedd wrote:
elpibe10 wrote:Motherboard: Zotac H55 ITX-WiFi
CPU: Intel Core i3-530
RAM: 2 x 2GB DDR3-1333 (Crucial Value CL9 1.5V)
Hard Drive: Intel 40GB SSD & WD Scorpio Blue 120GB
Power Supply: 90W PicoPSU with 90W AC/DC Adapter
From what I notice, most are using a Kill-A-Watt to measure power consumption. Just a thought, do you have C1E and EIST enabled?
Yes they've both enabled.

Frankly I'm still in doubt about those low power consumption figures from the review sites.

I've like 14 or 15 rigs at home (check my website - link below) and I've never been able to achieve that with any of them and most of my power supplies are 80-Plus certified, right up to Gold ... and they're never 'over-sized' (like 750W PSU on an i3-530 with IGP).

I'm sure they must have disabled practically everything in Win 7 and maybe even have the screen saver set to 'blank screen' to achieve those figures.

ilovejedd
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Post by ilovejedd » Sun Jun 13, 2010 4:41 pm

elpibe10 wrote:Frankly I'm still in doubt about those low power consumption figures from the review sites.

I've like 14 or 15 rigs at home (check my website - link below) and I've never been able to achieve that with any of them and most of my power supplies are 80-Plus certified, right up to Gold ... and they're never 'over-sized' (like 750W PSU on an i3-530 with IGP).

I'm sure they must have disabled practically everything in Win 7 and maybe even have the screen saver set to 'blank screen' to achieve those figures.
I tend to think they're believable. I really didn't do anything special on my build and I'm getting 30W idle similar to what I'm getting on my Atom 330 build. That's with Aero on, just sitting on the desktop. No other applications open (e.g. anti-virus, etc) and no sidebar gadgets since I dislike those. I've seen a lot of posts in this forum that show similar power consumption values to mine even without a PicoPSU. I think you might be the exception rather than the rule.

elpibe10
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Post by elpibe10 » Sun Jun 13, 2010 7:47 pm

ilovejedd wrote: I think you might be the exception rather than the rule.
Can't really agree with that.

30W idle with a huge chunk of the PSU's power wasted as inefficiency is theoretically just not possible ... especially if the PSU is 750W like that used by Tom's.

As for your case, if you're really getting 30W, then your PSU must be very efficient even at 10% load. Is that really possible ? I don't think so especially if it's not even 80 Plus Gold certified.

ilovejedd
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Post by ilovejedd » Sun Jun 13, 2010 8:13 pm

elpibe10 wrote:Can't really agree with that.

30W idle with a huge chunk of the PSU's power wasted as inefficiency is theoretically just not possible ... especially if the PSU is 750W like that used by Tom's.

As for your case, if you're really getting 30W, then your PSU must be very efficient even at 10% load. Is that really possible ? I don't think so especially if it's not even 80 Plus Gold certified.
From SPCR's review, their i5-661 system with onboard graphics uses just 18W DC idle. Instead of an indication of how efficient the PSU is, I think the extremely low power consumption at idle we're seeing from Clarkdales is a testament to Intel's power gating techniques. Figuring 30W is already at 60~70% efficiency, then actual system power consumption is just 18~21W.

ilovejedd
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Post by ilovejedd » Sun Jun 13, 2010 8:34 pm

Found the post with PicoPSU+H55+Clarkdale. Apparently, it was 22W and not 21W idle as I remembered.
Fanless i5-670 HTPC/File Server - getting below 20W idle?

elpibe10
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Post by elpibe10 » Sun Jun 13, 2010 9:13 pm

ilovejedd wrote:From SPCR's review, their i5-661 system with onboard graphics uses just 18W DC idle. Instead of an indication of how efficient the PSU is, I think the extremely low power consumption at idle we're seeing from Clarkdales is a testament to Intel's power gating techniques. Figuring 30W is already at 60~70% efficiency, then actual system power consumption is just 18~21W.
Guess mine is really on the high side. If that's the case then I really wonder why. :(

Any educated guesses on your part ? Honestly it's really painful (on my part) to accept that as a fact and I'd be really delighted (& relieved) if I can bring my numbers down to the norm.

BTW, Tom's figures is definitely out. Anandtech is getting 35W Idle with a PC Power & Cooling 610W PSU :

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2950/5

Tom's should easily be in the 40s if that's the case as the PC Power & Cooling 750W isn't exactly efficient at extremely low loads (we're talking about less than 10% here).

ilovejedd
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Post by ilovejedd » Mon Jun 14, 2010 5:29 am

elpibe10 wrote:BTW, Tom's figures is definitely out. Anandtech is getting 35W Idle with a PC Power & Cooling 610W PSU :

http://www.anandtech.com/show/2950/5

Tom's should easily be in the 40s if that's the case as the PC Power & Cooling 750W isn't exactly efficient at extremely low loads (we're talking about less than 10% here).
Anand's test set-up has two hard drives. Tom's only has one which could easily explain the extra 5W. Besides, for Tom's to get 40W AC, that would mean the power supply is only operating at around 50% efficiency. Despite being oversized, I don't think the PC P&C Silencer 750W would go quite that low.

Tried looking for a review and Hardware Secrets show efficiency at 20% to be 88.8%. Given that, I think it's quite plausible that the efficiency curve would peg it at 60~70% when at 3% load.

elpibe10
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Post by elpibe10 » Mon Jun 14, 2010 3:45 pm

ilovejedd wrote:Anand's test set-up has two hard drives. Tom's only has one which could easily explain the extra 5W. Besides, for Tom's to get 40W AC, that would mean the power supply is only operating at around 50% efficiency. Despite being oversized, I don't think the PC P&C Silencer 750W would go quite that low.

Tried looking for a review and Hardware Secrets show efficiency at 20% to be 88.8%. Given that, I think it's quite plausible that the efficiency curve would peg it at 60~70% when at 3% load.
PC P&C 750W is based off the old Seasonic M12 design and there's no way it would achieve 88.8% efficiency at 20%.

That'll be 80Plus Gold standard if that's true.

Take a look at the review of Seasonic's M12 here @ SPCR and you should be able to extrapolate intelligently from there. :wink:

Also, 60-70% efficiency @ 3% load is outstanding. I think it's more like 20 to 40% at best for such an old and over-powered PSU (for use with the i3-530 IGP rig).

elpibe10
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Post by elpibe10 » Thu Jun 17, 2010 4:53 pm

elpibe10 wrote:Guess mine is really on the high side. If that's the case then I really wonder why. :(

Any educated guesses on your part ? Honestly it's really painful (on my part) to accept that as a fact and I'd be really delighted (& relieved) if I can bring my numbers down to the norm.
No help from anyone here but doesn't matter as I guess I've found the answer ... thanks to Mike :idea: :
MikeC wrote:Power consumption is affected not only by the temp of the CPU but also peripheral components such as the VRM and the northbridge chip. Just how much this can vary depends on the particular parts, and how great the change is. With the hottest CPUs running at full artificial load (prime95, etc), the difference between the heatsink fan running at 12V vs 5V (assuming a Nexus 120 or similar) can be >10W at the AC outlet. However, if we're comparing two HSF at full speed, one a bit better than the other, then the difference would be much smaller -- as others have said, not more than a few watts.
My rig's higher power consumption is due to :

Poor processor cooling (stock Intel hsf) +
1 x 80mm intake case fan +
30+ deg C ambient temp

ntavlas
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Post by ntavlas » Fri Jun 18, 2010 4:03 am

Elpibe, I think that the motherboard and power adapter could also be a factor, the spartan intel dh57 is known to be very power efficient. Also, if I remember correctly, the poster who got 21watts out of his i3 rig had a few things disabled in the bios. I doubt the fans can account for more than a couple of watts. The ambient temperature is probably irrelevant too, the cpu draws so little current when idle that the vrms should stay well within their optimal operating temps.
It will work but don't forget that as PSU get older its output will decrease with time. To run a system where on full load you already use 80% or more is to ask for trouble.
I agree though this doesn`t apply to the pico psu as it doesn`t supply the 12v itself. It does apply to the power brick so a 120watt one would be a good idea.

ilovejedd
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Re: picopsu 90 enough for i3+dh57jg?

Post by ilovejedd » Sat Oct 16, 2010 6:25 pm

Thread necromancy but we finally have a comparison of power consumption of the following motherboards:

Model idle/load
Intel DH57JG 29W/87W
Gigabyte H55N-USB3 39W/97W
Zotac H55-ITX-C-E 47W/112W

source: http://www.silentpcreview.com/Silent_Ho ... otherboard

18W difference between Intel and Zotac... Granted, that's going to be less after you factor in power (in)efficiency but still... yeouch...

MrStrumpan
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Re: picopsu 90 enough for i3+dh57jg?

Post by MrStrumpan » Tue Nov 02, 2010 1:01 pm

I just got: PicoPSU-150-XT and EDAC 108W 8.5A AC-DC Power Adapter that I ordered from ebay.

Unfortunately there is a problem, the monitor screen is flickering when the HDD is working.
Any ides what the problem is? Not compatible with my system or maybe a faulty PicoPSU?
I have a regular ATX Power Supply and with that everything works fine.


System setup:

Motherboard: MSI H57M-ED65
CPU: Intel Core i3 540
Memory: 2x2GB 1.5V Value RAM
HDD: 1xWE Caviar Green 2TB WD20EARS (Rad/Write 6W)

Power at the wall
(only the computer connected):
33W Standby Win7
68W CPU 100% Load

MrStrumpan
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Joined: Tue Nov 02, 2010 12:32 pm

Re: picopsu 90 enough for i3+dh57jg?

Post by MrStrumpan » Sat Nov 06, 2010 10:47 am

The adapter was faulty, tested another one and everything worked.

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