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omvs

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 15, 2011
495
20
I remember seeing numbers for the idle power of the mini being on the order of 10watts. However, my mini (2011, i5 2.5GHz + Radeon 6630) seems to be burning 24watts idle.

I thought maybe the discrete GPU was just burning a ton of power, but apple's page implies it should only be a couple watts more - I should be seeing ~14W
(http://support.apple.com/kb/HT3468?viewlocale=en_US&locale=en_US)

If I trust iStat menu, it's reporting:
CPU A: ~3w
CPU FSB: ~1w
CPU High side: ~2w
GPU 1: ~5w
Graphics Module: ~8w
Northbridge 1: 0.3w
Northbridge 2: 1.2w

DC Input: 25w

Since the DC input seems to equal the sum of the components, I'm guessing GPU 1 and Graphics Module are separate draws, so I'm showing ~13w going to my GPU. I am not pushing the GPU especially hard - only have 2D programs running. I do have dual heads, but unlpugging one doesn't seem to impact the power draw (unlike my 2011 iMac where the 2nd head add +30w!)

Are others seeing this level of idle power with the 6630? Or is my system acting strange?

Thanks!
 

paulrbeers

macrumors 68040
Dec 17, 2009
3,963
123
I'm not sure how much I would trust iStat. If you are really concerned about how much power your mini is using, then get a Killawatt and truly test it at the wall. I don't see how a program can have any real clue (other than some kind of estimates that it's programmer throws out) as to how much power anything is using. No review site ever uses a program to tell you how much power a computer is using, instead they rely on external physical devices to determine power usage because that's the only accurate way to know.
 

omvs

macrumors 6502
Original poster
May 15, 2011
495
20
I'm not sure how much I would trust iStat. If you are really concerned about how much power your mini is using, then get a Killawatt and truly test it at the wall.

My Killawatt and iStat both agree that total power is ~25w. I don't know if I believe the breakdown wattage, but the total is tracking.
 
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