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sea800

macrumors newbie
Original poster
Oct 23, 2006
13
1
What is the effect on system power consumption of disabling cores through the processor control panel on the Mac Pro.
 

Pressure

macrumors 603
May 30, 2006
5,068
1,400
Denmark
Not good.

You will practically disable the entire processors ability to go into power saving modes.

As a result, it will probably use more power when used for general computing.

You may see a difference if you max out the cores the entire time.
 

Scarlet Fever

macrumors 68040
Jul 22, 2005
3,262
0
Bookshop!
processes will take longer, resulting in the chip getting hotter, meaning the fans work harder, meaning it will use more power.

just a guess :)
 

Eidorian

macrumors Penryn
Mar 23, 2005
29,190
386
Indianapolis
Intel SpeedStep already comes with the iMac, Mac mini Macbooks. Now the thing is, I don't know if OS X takes advantage of it. I've seen results where turning off cores on laptops leads to greater heat and power consumption.

You're not going to save any power or generate any less heat unless you unsocket a processor.
 

THX1139

macrumors 68000
Mar 4, 2006
1,928
0
What is the effect on system power consumption of disabling cores through the processor control panel on the Mac Pro.

Why worry about system power consumption? Are you just trying to do your part to help eliminate global warming?
 

BiikeMike

macrumors 65816
Sep 17, 2005
1,019
1
Why worry about system power consumption? Are you just trying to do your part to help eliminate global warming?


Yeah, for real. Not like its gonna lower your power bill much! Now, turning off your monitors, THAT would save on your power bill! Think you can work with no monitors? :D
 

Pressure

macrumors 603
May 30, 2006
5,068
1,400
Denmark
Yeah, for real. Not like its gonna lower your power bill much! Now, turning off your monitors, THAT would save on your power bill! Think you can work with no monitors? :D

Actually, LCD screens only use a fraction of the power a normal CRT monitor does.
 

synth3tik

macrumors 68040
Oct 11, 2006
3,951
2
Minneapolis, MN
The power comsuption on the Mac Pro is relatively low in comparision to other computer/processors. The harder a processor works the higher the temp of the processor and less efficent it is and the higher the fans spin. having more processors doing less work takes less energy.
 

flyinmac

macrumors 68040
Sep 2, 2006
3,579
2,465
United States
No one but to my knowledge Apple does not sell CRT monitors. ;)

Yes. But, only the rich would buy a monitor from Apple.

The only Apple monitors I've owned have been the ones built-into the iMacs.

I'm not about to pay $600 or $1200 when I can get a comparable monitor for $200 or $400 somewhere else. Sure, it may not look like a Mac monitor, but all I care about is how things displayed on the monitor look.
 
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