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Tweaked Apple TV Offers 'Significant' but Nearly Invisible Power Savings With More Efficient Chip Designs
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THIS! This is the point most everyone is missing. For a battery powered device, this is incredibly significant!
Apple is smart is testing a power saving revision of a mobile chip in an AC device before rolling it out on battery powered devices.
You're all correct, of course, but I'm thinking from a consumer perspective vis a vis household energy costs.
and in the summer it's complete waste, especially if you use A/C to cool your room. point?
uhh, no, that isnt true. the greater the demand for power, the more power is produced. power is not free -- it all has some sort of by-product. emissions and soot in the case of coal, uranium waste in nuclear, etc... nothing comes for free.
the idea is to minimize demand. always.
Like the majority of computer owners who leave them on 24/7.
At +200 watts, that's a lot of wasted power.
If people shutdown their computers would be a more significant impact than this 1 watt.
who would leave their PC on 24/7? dunno about you but all my macs are set to sleep when not in use.
If anybody's implying that 1w total usage is low enough for an iWatch, bear in mind the iPhone battery would power this for 5.45 hours.
Of course an iWatch designed around the same processor would tell a different story.
Good news for Australians. At 25-30c/ kWh we pay for electricity we'll be saving a lot more!
Of course an iWatch designed around the same processor would tell a different story.
Good news for Australians. At 25-30c/ kWh we pay for electricity we'll be saving a lot more!
I think its incredibly disturbing that we with our gluttony on electricity and oil can somehow think we are actually doing anything for the environment by shaving less than a watt off a device (especially one that we don't need and is not even close to a major 'want'). This a nearly infinitesimal power savings that is completely lost in the grand scheme of things. If you want to help the environment/use less energy simple lifestyle changes should be pursued first.
If you want to save 10 times more electricity a year just unplug your microwave/tv/coffee maker when you are not using it as these devices can consume several watts sitting around doing nothing. If you are not doing this then please don't say that now you are going to be doing more for the environment with the new apple TV.
"Every little bit helps" --> If you can stand by this statement for a power use of less than 1 watt then you better be exceptionally frugal with energy use. People are so quick to jump on the "yay technology is so much more efficient and this is better for the environment bandwagon" but so slow to make even the smallest of lifestyle changes.
Note: I do not think that saving electricity is a bad thing. Saving electricity is a good thing. But to take this out of proportion as below.
"On a person by person basis, no the power savings are not that much. BUT, spread over several million devices, it does add up to a greater good. Kudos Apple."
Its kinda ridiculous. Those million people would do far more good for the environment buying the day old bread at the bakery instead of allowing it to be thrown out.
Apple is doing this to save money, not because they can save energy. Its the same for every generation of new technology and nobody makes anything out of it. But suddenly apple does it and its "magical".
If you want to save 10 times more electricity a year just unplug your microwave/tv/coffee maker when you are not using it as these devices can consume several watts sitting around doing nothing. If you are not doing this then please don't say that now you are going to be doing more for the environment with the new apple TV.
"Every little bit helps" --> If you can stand by this statement for a power use of less than 1 watt then you better be exceptionally frugal with energy use. People are so quick to jump on the "yay technology is so much more efficient and this is better for the environment bandwagon" but so slow to make even the smallest of lifestyle changes.
Note: I do not think that saving electricity is a bad thing. Saving electricity is a good thing. But to take this out of proportion as below.
"On a person by person basis, no the power savings are not that much. BUT, spread over several million devices, it does add up to a greater good. Kudos Apple."
Its kinda ridiculous. Those million people would do far more good for the environment buying the day old bread at the bakery instead of allowing it to be thrown out.
Apple is doing this to save money, not because they can save energy. Its the same for every generation of new technology and nobody makes anything out of it. But suddenly apple does it and its "magical
".
"Day old bread" isn't as common as it used to be. Most modern bakeries use enzymes that keep bread from going stale for a significantly longer period of time. It's actually kind of a pain when you want to make French toast or croutons.
The huge power save is when you replace an old or new computer that you used as media center with an Apple TV.
The amount of power you save going from an old Apple TV to the new one is insignificant.
BTW, the AnandTech numbers is based on using the Apple TV 8 hrs/day. If you would get the tweaked version and say "Wow, it uses so little electricity, I don't need to turn it off at all!", then you would end up using about 50% more electricity than if you had the non tweaked version and just used it 8 hrs/day.
Not that an 50% increase matters when we are talking about such low amount of electricity.
The amount of power you save going from an old Apple TV to the new one is insignificant.
BTW, the AnandTech numbers is based on using the Apple TV 8 hrs/day. If you would get the tweaked version and say "Wow, it uses so little electricity, I don't need to turn it off at all!", then you would end up using about 50% more electricity than if you had the non tweaked version and just used it 8 hrs/day.
Not that an 50% increase matters when we are talking about such low amount of electricity.
Yes, we are getting "greener".
Think of all the new customers buying a more power efficient ATV instead of the older ones.
But still you are right in one way: no need to swap from another actual ATV.
I guess you've never heard of a battery? or generators? More accurately, the gasoline used which is a huge silo of potential energy. Both of those store energy, waiting to get used. If the energy in a battery had to get used or it goes to waste, as soon as you stopped using it, the battery would heat up and burst into flames.
That's just scratching the surface of how you're getting this all wrong. Power supplies are switching power supplies. So a 1000watt PSU doesn't HAVE to use 1000 watts or "lose" the rest. Power supplies can control the amount of current they pull from the wall based on the load applied.
Imagine how this translates to Apple's work on their A7 chip. The next iPhone might have some significant battery life improvements.
Well, more efficient processes isn't anything new yet we are still hovering around the same runtime as the iPhone 4. There are a couple things impacting battery life.
1) The SOC isn't the only thing that needs power
2) Apple compensates by making devices thinner
It's not the consumers job to know what they want until you show it to them. Same goes for fridge food.
This is probably the main point; not that the processor here is going to be used in some iWatch, but that they're testing new tech that they can utilise in future chip designs. There's always going to be a benefit to chopping a significant proportion of the power consumption off the actual iPhone (and iPod, iPad) chips. And any other device chips they might produce in the future.
This could simply be something for apple to add to their "look how we are green" resume. It may not matter on a per user basis, but when you are adding up millions of devices that means millions of dollars save and millions or billion of poinds of emissions never pumped into the atmosphere.
It's laying the foundation for the phone and tablet which run off battery. 50% reduction gives more headroom for other things like higher clock speeds or better battery life.
You know power must be used or it goes to waste anyway, right?
It's not like there are huge power storage tanks all over the world holding/storing power people don't use.
Most TV's consume 200watts and PC's about twice that.
Then if you have a good AV system, it will consume +500 watts or more depending on the subwoofer and loudness.
In the grand scheme of things, this is nothing but a talking point.
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Like the majority of computer owners who leave them on 24/7.
At +200 watts, that's a lot of wasted power.
If people shutdown their computers would be a more significant impact than this 1 watt.
The majority of computer owners leave them on 24/7? I'm not saying you're wrong, but is there an actual statistic you have to back this up or is it am assumption?
In terms of power reserves, you are right. But consuming less means we must produce less. This is significant in coal burning plants especially.
Are we changing the world? No. But shaving off power consumption in all products is certainly a step in the right direction.
As much as we try to be nice and green and all, this really wasn't the reason to design this A5 version. Where it's seated at the time, it does not help anything. Don't forget this does not affect ATV's standby power in any way - only the active power consumption while driving an HDMI out.
This chip as we see it here cannot be destined for iWatch either. At least not as-is. iWatch does not require dual core graphics, even at some reasonable Retina-class resolution on a wristwatch display. Obviously external RAM is a non-starter for iWatch.
That's not to say the other parts of this chip which are responsible for the dramatic reduction of active power won't find their way into an iWatch or indeed other device. Apple just needed a testbed and their favorite testbed being ATV requires a single core A5 and dual core graphics to do it's job, so that's the least they had to throw in this chip, but nothing more than that.
Why did Apple not keep two A5 cores and replace the older 32nm A5 in iPad Mini, iPad 2, iPod Touch and iPhone 4S? Obviously that would require stacked RAM package at least for some of the above devices. It would help lower costs and extend battery life. Why not? Why is Apple - for all we know - still shoving 45nm A5 in iPhone 4S - which is still massively popular?
This chip as we see it here cannot be destined for iWatch either. At least not as-is. iWatch does not require dual core graphics, even at some reasonable Retina-class resolution on a wristwatch display. Obviously external RAM is a non-starter for iWatch.
That's not to say the other parts of this chip which are responsible for the dramatic reduction of active power won't find their way into an iWatch or indeed other device. Apple just needed a testbed and their favorite testbed being ATV requires a single core A5 and dual core graphics to do it's job, so that's the least they had to throw in this chip, but nothing more than that.
Why did Apple not keep two A5 cores and replace the older 32nm A5 in iPad Mini, iPad 2, iPod Touch and iPhone 4S? Obviously that would require stacked RAM package at least for some of the above devices. It would help lower costs and extend battery life. Why not? Why is Apple - for all we know - still shoving 45nm A5 in iPhone 4S - which is still massively popular?
Let's compare this to your power hungry cable boxes.
Seriously, I don't have cable. Someone check the back of their cable box and crunch the numbers.
Seriously, I don't have cable. Someone check the back of their cable box and crunch the numbers.