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Power Consumption Improved

kagharaht

kagharaht

macrumors 68000
Original poster
Oct 7, 2007
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Wow. Really enjoying the new iMac M3 coming from Late 2013. I used to keep the old iMac ON to never Sleep and the delay for Home Sharing was something I got used to. Specially if it's sleeping it takes a few attempts for ATV to connect with Home Sharing. This new iMac is pretty instant connecting now. I even tried it on auto sleep and it connects fast with no repeats. I read the Power Consumption and this thing uses very little power when idle compared to my Late 2013. It doesn't show idle and display off numbers, but I'm thinking it's even lower.
 

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kagharaht said:
Wow. Really enjoying the new M3 coming from Late 2013. I used to keep the old iMac ON to never Sleep and the delay for Home Sharing was something I got used to. Specially if it's sleeping it takes a few attempts for ATV to connect with Home Sharing. This new iMac is pretty instant connecting now. I even tried it on auto sleep and it connects fast with no repeats. I read the Power Consumption and this thing uses very little power when idle compared to my Late 2013. It doesn't show idle and display off numbers, but I'm thinking it's even lower.
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You halved your power consumption while raw performance improved, screen size improved and brightness improved.

Looking forward to my 2012 27" moving to a 2024 32". Looking to halve power consumption with a 32" 6K panel refreshed for 2024.
 
uller6 said:
My M1 iMac uses ~45W with screen on half brightness at idle and about ~5W screen off at idle as measured by my kill-a-watt at the wall.
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I don't have one of those tools. That's amazing. Just 5W or so idle with screen off! :)
 
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kagharaht said:
I don't have one of those tools. That's amazing. Just 5W or so idle with screen off! :)
Click to expand...
Curious how did you measure your power usage then? I am ordering an M3 iMac to use in my camper van with a 640Ah 12v battery bank with a mini 300W inverter to power it, replacing a MBP 16" M1 Pro which uses next to nothing even with brightness at 75%.
 
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CheesePuff said:
Curious how did you measure your power usage then? I am ordering an M3 iMac to use in my camper van with a 640Ah 12v battery bank with a mini 300W inverter to power it, replacing a MBP 16" M1 Pro which uses next to nothing even with brightness at 75%.
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From above post from "uller6" who used something called "kill-a-watt meter" to measure the power usage. I looked it up and Amazon has several models you may want to try out.
 
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CheesePuff said:
Curious how did you measure your power usage then? I am ordering an M3 iMac to use in my camper van with a 640Ah 12v battery bank with a mini 300W inverter to power it, replacing a MBP 16" M1 Pro which uses next to nothing even with brightness at 75%.
Click to expand...
Are you going to use the VESA mount iMac for your van? I think the iMac would look really slick right up against a wall. It might even take up less practical space than the 16" MBP.
 
uller6 said:
Are you going to use the VESA mount iMac for your van? I think the iMac would look really slick right up against a wall. It might even take up less practical space than the 16" MBP.
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I will be getting the VESA mount version but with a table mount arm instead of placing it against the wall (as I have a front to back facing desk area instead of against the wall of the van)
 
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CheesePuff said:
Very good.. 13 watts is basically nothing, especially for a 24" high resolution desktop. The Intel 27" iMac's would easily idle at 60 watts or so
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We’re way off on our power consumption measurements, but I have some external hard drives hanging off the back of my machines that probably add to my measured power consumption numbers. My 2011 27” runs around 140 watts. That costs me $300/year more than the M1 iMac to run.
 
Jackbequickly said:
‘I believe it to be excellent!

Many times I put my M3 to sleep at night instead of turning it off. I am amazed that with it in sleep mode, using one watt, you say ”hey Siri” and it will bring up Siri!

So with one watt, it is still “listening” for Siri . . . . .
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It's crazy efficient! I've been out of the loop for a long time and never really paid attention to the M chips coming out. I just knew they were power efficient and FAST. Since getting the new iMac I started to catch up on this stuff. I posted a message on the MBA thread since I bought my wife a new MBA 15" and read the M chip never really turns off and just stays on. So I asked about it thinking it's the same as PowerNap with INTEL, but its not the same. Amazing. I left that thing on sleep for a few days and it's still 96% if I recall correctly, and that's with the CPU never really turning off.
 
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CheesePuff said:
I just received by BTO iMac M3 with 24 GB RAM, 1 TB SSD with a Vesa mount and have to say I am very impressed with the power consumption. Even at 50% brightness and my usual 10 applications open for work, it is using just 30 watts.
Click to expand...
Amazing isn't it? I said before that I won't bother sleeping the iMac but I changed my mind. I started to experiment with it for a couple of days and HomeSharing has no problem connecting immediately with the iMac in sleep. Unlike my Late 2013, where I have to try and connect 4 or 5 times when it's sleeping. This M3 is instant even when sleeping!
 
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kagharaht said:
Amazing isn't it? I said before that I won't bother sleeping the iMac but I changed my mind. I started to experiment with it for a couple of days and HomeSharing has no problem connecting immediately with the iMac in sleep. Unlike my Late 2013, where I have to try and connect 4 or 5 times when it's sleeping. This M3 is instant even when sleeping!
Click to expand...
Do you just have the 'Prevent automatic sleeping when the display is off' disabled?
 
CheesePuff said:
Do you just have the 'Prevent automatic sleeping when the display is off' disabled?
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Yes and when the screen turns off 10 min or idle, it will sleep. Although from what I was told the M Chips never really sleep and wake up intermittently to check and update things like the INTEL chips. The M chips are alway ON. Never really turning off.
 
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