Mac mini vs. Mac Pro savings on electricity bill is amazing!

I just sold my Mac Pro the other day and I have been considering getting 2 2010 or newer Mac Mini's, another to replace my PM G5. I had a 2007 Mac Pro and it put off so much heat from the RAM that during the summer I never use it. Surprisingly, my G5 runs much cooler than the MP.

But, from a power standpoint I know I will be saving a lot on power by replacing both the G5 and MP with Mini's. Just waiting on Apple to throw up more of them on the refurb page.

cocacolakid said:

Just for the heck of it I used an online electricity calculator to see actual amounts comparing a 2012 Mac m
If your electricity provider charges .10 per Kwh (about the average in the U.S., some providers are half that and some are 1 1/2 times that), a Mac mini using 50 watts running at full blast 24 hours per day would cost $3.36 per month or $43.68 per year.

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Sorry to be off topic but you are paying 10c per kWh in US?
My gawd that is less half our rate here....

hleewell said:

Sorry to be off topic but you are paying 10c per kWh in US?
My gawd that is more than half our rate here....

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That is a low estimate in my opinion, I think the average is a few cents higher.

I will echo previous posts about rated capacity vs used on the power supplies. I've seen 1,200 watt power supplies drawing 190 watts at "full load" for the configuration they're in. Most power supplies on OEM hardware have overhead to allow for additional components and part tolerances without running out of power.

That said - comparing directly to the Mini is not very useful - one is designed for lower power usage as one of the top priorities, while the other is designed for computing performance as a top priority.

Harder specs to find on consumer hardware - though available / can be calculated - would be # of Flops / Watt Hour - something you're more likely to encounter for hardware in rending farms, or distributed computing clusters. When comparing this aspect - you'll start to see a difference between the two. That said - for some things, the i7 within the Mini may still show advantages on some configurations.

I guess the best advantage would come from constraints of finite hardware, and computing performance - as you would see on workstation use. When you're on the clock - and must get results as quickly as you can for your workflow - you sacrifice electrical efficiency for raw power. Much like a semi truck - they're very efficient pulling a heavy load - but very much not when pulling a light one. Which is why you rarely see un-hooked tractors driving down the highway these days.

So don't use a 8 Core Mac Pro for a network drive or media server, let the Mini do that. Let the MP sleep until you need some heavy work done.

Should you have an 8 Core MP kicking around, and you want a media server - I will gladly trade you my Mini so you can start saving some energy.

About six months ago I contacted my electric company and switch to their "time-of-use" rate. So now, instead of paying 10 cents per kilowatt hour all the time, I pay 5 cents per kWh during off-peak hours and 21 cents per kWh during on-peak hours. Currently, summertime on-peak hours are just 3-6 PM Monday through Friday. All other hours, including all day Saturday and Sunday are off-peak (i.e., half price). This alone has saved me ~30% per month on my electric bill.

Having on and off peak rates has made me more aware, and that's prompted me to take other steps to save even more. For example, instead of watching Netflix on my 450 watt 50-inch plasma TV, I watch it on my iPad. My gaming PC, which uses about 200 watts at idle and about 500 watts under heavy load, is for sale. Using it for general purpose computing makes little sense. I replaced it with a 2012 Mac Mini paid for mostly from the money I've saved on my electric bill since January. As a bonus, I'm using the Mini and my iPad to teach myself how to code apps for iOS. Something that probably would not have happened otherwise.

corvus32 said:

This alone has saved me ~30% per month on my electric bill.

Having on and off peak rates has made me more aware, and that's prompted me to take other steps to save even more. For example, instead of watching Netflix on my 450 watt 50-inch plasma TV, I watch it on my iPad. My gaming PC, which uses about 200 watts at idle and about 500 watts under heavy load, is for sale. Using it for general purpose computing makes little sense. I replaced it with a 2012 Mac Mini paid for mostly from the money I've saved on my electric bill since January. As a bonus, I'm using the Mini and my iPad to teach myself how to code apps for iOS. Something that probably would not have happened otherwise.

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Thank you, more electricity for the rest of us.

cocacolakid said:

Just for the heck of it I used an online electricity calculator to see actual amounts comparing a 2012 Mac mini to a Mac Pro PSU.

Not everyone can switch to a mini, but for many users the HD 4000 graphics in the mini are able to run Photoshop, Lightroom, CS6, etc. without problems. This isn't an endorsement saying the mini will be the perfect match for any user, but for those that it does work for, the benefits in the electrical bill are amazing.

If your electricity provider charges .10 per Kwh (about the average in the U.S., some providers are half that and some are 1 1/2 times that), a Mac mini using 50 watts running at full blast 24 hours per day would cost $3.36 per month or $43.68 per year.

Even if you use Apple's numbers of 85 watts for the mini, that's $5.71 per month or $74.26 per year, running 24/7.

A Mac Pro using 980 watts (a Mac Pro PSU runs 980 watts, from what I've found online) at full power 24/7 would cost $65.86 per month or $856.13 per year.

While neither is going to run full blast 24/7, and actual Kwh used is going to vary greatly by each individual user, that's still a startling comparison.

Basically, the electricity alone saved per year would pay for the mini. Even if actual usage on the Mac Pro is half that, the electricity savings would pay for the mini in well under 2 years.

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thought I'd weigh in with my experience . . .

got an early 2008 mac pro, 2.8Ghz 2 x quad with 4 internal HDD, at idle uses iro 250w, at 100% cpu (rendering) pulls 350w. Thats with a 23" cinema display as well btw. I bought a meter that you plug your mains AC plug into so it measures inline.

just for comparison - a pc I built recently - core i7 3770k, overclocked to 4.4Ghz with ssd boot drive and one HDD on 100% cpu pulls 147w! My plan is to make that into a hackintosh.

and furthermore, 1 KWh in the uk is iro £0.16 (€0.19 or $0.25) !
and 1 Litre of petrol is £1.37 avg (€1.59 or $2.12 per Litre)

so it likely that you won't save as much on electricity as you think but still some. i was interested in this as I am considering retiring the mac pro for a min in the near future, partially for energy usage and also space (the pro is huge!)

hope the mini works out well for you !

Also,

MacPro can do things quicker, which means it is doing things which need more electric in a less amount of time.

The Mini on the other hand will take much longer and thus may use less at the moment but more since it takes to complete the task.

A good example would be converting an HD movie.

In the end it really shouldn't matter, get what you need.

As a reminder to all who are concerned about energy consumption, the environment the computer sits in is very important.

If it's in a home where you're heating much of the year, all of the electricity drawn ultimately is converted to heat. Granted, it's not the most efficient heating source but it's not wasted, either.

By contrast, if the area where the computer is located is predominately air conditioned, the electricity drawn is even more important. Not only do you pay to run the computer but then you also have to pay to remove from the room the heat the computer generated.

Basically, the electricity alone saved per year would pay for the mini. Even if actual usage on the Mac Pro is half that, the electricity savings would pay for the mini in well under 2 years.[/QUOTE]

As others have noted a real world test is best. The mac mini is just the computer. One should be adding in the cost/energy use to run the *monitor* as well - I'm guessing the difference would be much smaller if you are hooked up to a 24-27" monitor

My 2012 2.3GHz Core i7 Mac Mini is nice and computationally it's not bad considering it's age. Without making an endorsement one way or the other I would like to caution that that when pushed hard the 2.3GHz and I suspect even more so the 2.6GHz i7 processors will melt themselves at a blistering 90C+ range. That temperature is well within the range of damaging the processor over time.

Right now doing nothing more then browsing the web on it with a Windows 10 VM updating in the background and serving iTunes content this machine is at 89C (Edit: as I sent this message I noticed that it cooled down to a slightly less alarming 72C). To give you an idea of just how bad the cooling is my iMac is at 35C while updating the Windows VM that it runs. My gaming machine playing Mass Effect 4 is running at 66C.

Oh my gosh I just noticed that this is a necked thread.

Boyd01 said:

If that's the case, then why don't we see a lot of posts here about dead quad core 2012 Mini's? It's a 5 year old machine and I really have not seen an evidence of this in the forum.

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There is no if that's the case. 90C is very bad for Intels processors.

Not everyone comes to a forum to complain. Some if they do mistake the problem for something else.

I got my mini from Best Buy about a month before the 2014 model was released. So it's one of the newer 2012 models. At full tilt my Mac Mini reaches 98C and I'm fairly certain the processor throttles to keep from getting warmer.

This is the exact reason why other Macs have failed. The issue with the 2011 MBP and blaming ATI/AMD for the graphics was a low blow considering the operating temperatures of the machine.

Since this machine doesn't have a dedicated graphics chip to cook off the heat does other things like electronic migration on the CPU. Over time the processor will start to generate errors. Programs will start inexplicably crashing. It might be mistaken for poor programming at first but it's the CPU crapping out.
[doublepost=1491137781][/doublepost]I want to note though I'm not saying that the 2012 Mac Mini quad core is bad. I love mine to death. It makes a great semi portable machine that I take with me on trips. This was my first desktop Mac. I only bring up the temperature aspect to help people keep from burning theirs up prematurely.

Boyd01 said:

If that's the case, then why don't we see a lot of posts here about dead quad core 2012 Minis? It's a 5 year old machine and I really have not seen an evidence of this in the forum.

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Why don't we take Boyd01's question further? Mac users complain online about all manner of things. We have seen many posts about problems with graphics chips and self-imposed DIY upgrade glitches. IR sensors, Power LEDs, and temperature sensors are often broken during DIY upgrade sessions. Occasionally there are RAM failures and mechanical HD failures are bound to happen as computers age. They appear to be getting more reliable every month but even SSDs fail sometimes.

If we accept that the 2012 Mac mini has a fundamentally flawed cooling system then:

• Why don't we see more posts about dead quad core 2012 minis anywhere?
• Why don't we see more posts about dead i7 2012 minis than we do about the i5 version?
• Why are confirmed CPU failures on 2012 minis so rare?
• How rare are i7 failures on Mac mini computers?

These machines have been around for more than 4 years. I have noticed that people post concerns about the operating temperature range and fan control system of the Mac mini. Are scores of 2012 quad core minis somehow failing from overheating with scarcely a whisper of complaint on the Internet?

i noticed a big drop in my electric bill when i went from a 1.1 mp to a mini

so much quieter too

Boyd01 said:

Recently, that seems to be the main reason why people come to the Mini forum. Complaints that the Mini hasn't been updated. Complaints that the 2014 Mini is underpowered. Complaints that the 5400 RPM hard drive is slow. Complaints that RAM is not upgradeable. Complaints that the Mini isn't as good as Windows NUC's. Complaints about Tim Cook's strategy….

But the main complaint about the quad mini is that Apple discontinued it.

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Touché those are all very valid complaints.

However still heat is the mortal enemy of electronics. Coming from a Mac Pro to a Mac Mini heat is going to be a new issue since the Mac Pro has excellent cooling capabilities.

For the other person expanding upon why we're not seeing computers with dead processors it is because the processors don't die out right. They become flaky and unstable. Programs crash and strange errors start cropping up. For processing intensive tasks the results can end up garbled.

EnderBeta said:

For the other person expanding upon why we're not seeing computers with dead processors it is because the processors don't die out right. They become flaky and unstable. Programs crash and strange errors start cropping up. For processing intensive tasks the results can end up garbled.

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Okay, I suppose that over time, extreme heat could cause a CPU to fail in that way. Also, if this type of failure occurred it would be difficult to prove that the problem was caused by overheating. Perhaps most folks would suspect software problems if they encountered program crashes with strange errors. I have however, seen something different from Intel chips and other electronics. Heat induced failures are often like fainting spells, with temporary failures that go away when the temperatures (or load) are brought back to the normal range (or reduced).

Are there any overclockers out there? Back when we were playing with Mendocino core 300A chips, raising the processor operating voltage to support a higher clock speed was common. Higher voltage caused more heat and the chips would quit working until you backed down the voltage (heat). Overclockers quickly figured out that better cooling would allow us to run the chips harder without these fainting spells. I never killed a single CPU but we always figured that it was possible to destroy one with heat.

At first it did seem weird to trust Apple (and Intel) on the cooling and CPU operating temperature specifications. In minis the temperatures from the various sensors seemed really hot compared to other computers that I was familiar with. But now it has been years and I frankly have not recognized any pattern of heat induced failures. Perhaps the acute symptoms that I was familiar with were somehow engineered out and your long term chronic degradation failures have caused legions of undiagnosed failures but they sure are hard to detect. Temperature related failures in electronics often display characteristic sensitivity to voltage and clock speed (work).

I do occasional video work with my i7 but it usually spends its clock cycles chewing clover and chasing other ponies. I wonder if the folks who work their minis hard have more of those "flaky and unstable" failures than the rest of us?


Intel Celeron 300A+ABIT BH6 - The GOAT
(Greatest Overclock of All Time)

Celerondon said:

Okay, I suppose that over time, extreme heat could cause a CPU to fail in that way. Also, if this type of failure occurred it would be difficult to prove that the problem was caused by overheating. Perhaps most folks would suspect software problems if they encountered program crashes with strange errors. I have however, seen something different from Intel chips and other electronics. Heat induced failures are often like fainting spells, with temporary failures that go away when the temperatures (or load) are brought back to the normal range (or reduced).

Are there any overclockers out there? Back when we were playing with Mendocino core 300A chips, raising the processor operating voltage to support a higher clock speed was common. Higher voltage caused more heat and the chips would quit working until you backed down the voltage (heat). Overclockers quickly figured out that better cooling would allow us to run the chips harder without these fainting spells. I never killed a single CPU but we always figured that it was possible to destroy one with heat.

At first it did seem weird to trust Apple (and Intel) on the cooling and CPU operating temperature specifications. In minis the temperatures from the various sensors seemed really hot compared to other computers that I was familiar with. But now it has been years and I frankly have not recognized any pattern of heat induced failures. Perhaps the acute symptoms that I was familiar with were somehow engineered out and your long term chronic degradation failures have caused legions of undiagnosed failures but they sure are hard to detect. Temperature related failures in electronics often display characteristic sensitivity to voltage and clock speed (work).

I do occasional video work with my i7 but it usually spends its clock cycles chewing clover and chasing other ponies. I wonder if the folks who work their minis hard have more of those "flaky and unstable" failures than the rest of us?


Intel Celeron 300A+ABIT BH6 - The GOAT
(Greatest Overclock of All Time)

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I started overclocking in college with a pair of 2.4ghz 400mhz fsb xeons and running them at 2.93ghz 533fsb. I remember they after about four years where very unstable.

I didn't over clock my q9650 because of that and today that processor is still working in the form of a hackintosh.

My 2012 Mac Mini is not showing signs of processor degradation either. I fear it a lot though. I don't know if Intel fixed the issue or not. If they did awesome, another reason why they are awesome. The temps of my Mini worry me though.

I know Stevie Richards on YouTube uses a 2012 Mac Mini hard core for his YouTube Videos. I haven't heard him complain of any issues on his channel.

It's entirely possible I'm just being a worry wart.

EnderBeta said:

...
My 2012 Mac Mini is not showing signs of processor degradation either. I fear it a lot though. I don't know if Intel fixed the issue or not. If they did awesome, another reason why they are awesome. The temps of my Mini worry me though.
...
It's entirely possible I'm just being a worry wart.

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Yeah, I know what you mean. I mostly am over that fear but once in a while I get reminded of how hot these little silver bricks run.

Speaking of the wonder of Intel. These processors are amazing, aren't they? When there is work to do they sort of overclock themselves but when things heat up they are designed to throttle back to protect against extreme temperatures.

George Dawes said:

i noticed a big drop in my electric bill when i went from a 1.1 mp to a mini

so much quieter too

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I owned a 2008 8 Core MacPro for about a year. I didn't need it, just bought it for the fun of it with a bonus check I got from my job at the time. That summer, I tried leaving the Mac Pro on to use that SETI@home app. Leaving the computer running for several weeks, my electric bill went up to over $100 when usually it's about $50 each month in the summer. I sold the Mac Pro for just enough to buy the 15" MBP in 2009.

Leaving my 2012 i7 quad core Mini on 24/7 as an iTunes server has NO noticeable effect on my electric bill. It's been left on 24/7 for the past 2.5 years since buying it.

George Dawes said:

i noticed a big drop in my electric bill when i went from a 1.1 mp to a mini

so much quieter too

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JUST today, I put in some work in cleaning off my Power Mac G5 - M9032LL/A - http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/powermac_g5/specs/powermac_g5_2.0_dp.html

That sucker is like working the runway at an airport. The power drain is intense as well. I've not turned it on for a number of years, and I had forgotten.

George Dawes said:

i went from a 1.1 mp to a mini [...] so much quieter

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Either your MP fans were full of accumulated dust or you are purely referring to idle state. Under load the mini already screams where the MP doesn't even raise the fan RPM ...

EnderBeta said:

The temps of my Mini worry me though.

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Did you check your mini's fan for accumulated dust? Also, Apple is infamous for applying too much heat paste. Now if your mini would be affected from that and the heat paste has been drying out over the years, thus losing some cooling capability ...

To be fair: It's only speculation at this point. I'm not aware of related reports on the unibody minis, but Apple's notebooks had their share of that problem. Some reports even claimed to have seen lowered temps in the 10-20 degrees range, after renewing heat paste (including proper application).