Hello, I’m planning on getting a new mid-high end PC in the near future. It’s been like 8 years since my last PC, and I’m planning on getting the 14600k, but I’m still unsure. So I need some advice.
I use my computer every single day at the very least 12 hours a day. My daily usage would be browsing, watching videos (Youtube & downloaded movies), daytrade, data entry (MS office), writing, Photoshop, and other various low workload activities.
I usually only play video games on the weekend, so I need to get a rig that’s mostly use for basic daily activities, but powerful enough for smooth gaming when I need it to.
The thing is, there’s a bit of z6xx boards scarcity, so the price is a bit skewed, and b/z7xx is really expensive on where I live. And I really need a mid-high end boards because I requires the ports and the storage slots, so I can’t really skimp out on this one. I was considering in getting a 7800x3d since apparently the cost difference of the 7800x3d + board is just slightly a bit more expensive than 14600k + motherboard, so I’m just thinking about the long run now since apparently amd has idle/low consumption issues.
What I wanted to know is that, what is the average power consumption for basic daily activities? The power bill on my country is quite high, so I want to try minimalize the monthly cost as possible. I heard that Intel is incredibly efficient during idles, but what about using it for workload like above? Does that still apply? Can anyone that uses this chip share their experience?
Also I’m aware that I’m posting this on Intel because I’ve always been using the blue chips, but I hope you people can keep the bias to minimum because I really could use the unbiased advice.
I have 14900k with an Asus 360mm aio right now and at idle it gets about 36 to 39°C and under a decently hard load it gets high 70s low 80s but usually in the high 50s and 60s during a decent gaming mode. May I suggest if you’re choosing between CPUs definitely go with the 14 700 K because they upgraded the best since the 13 GEN out of all the other chips they went from a 16 core to a 20 core chip. And it gets 200mhz higher frequency for p cores and 100 MHz higher for e cores… you can unlock the full potential of these chips with the new z790 refreshed boards which added new dimm flex technology to make ram temps more stable and aemp 2 which also helps u iverclock ram if you use 4 sticks of ddr5
Right now for me on reddit I’m using about 20w with my 13600KF, if you’re worried about power consumption you can always under volt and add a power limit
But is it necessary?
No. Unequivocally no.
How do you track this please?
Or watt meter from wall socket.
Not speaking for that poster but I use UPS for watts reading.
By UPS do you mean an uninteruptable power supply?
Yep, i have a CyberPower CP1500PFCLCD.
CPU-Z or HWID i dont remember which i used
For really low power you need to get a wall meter or similar. The built in CPU power meter only gives the CPU power, and at idle a lot or even most of the system power isn’t dissipated by the CPU.
Not what you asked, but for context and whatnot: my 7800X3D sits around ~18 Watts at idle, ~20 Watts with YouTube, Steam and whatnot. In gaming it’s anywhere from 25 to 55 Watts.
That’s pretty low for gaming. Not too bad
With any intel cpu from 12th gen and afterwards, idle power draw should be around 3 to 5 watts and browsing the web or doing simple spreadsheet work etc should be between 8 and 15. That’s if you have set up C states properly and balanced power plan.
My 12900k with 2 videos streaming (YouTube and twitch) browsing the web while on a discord call is below 10 watts.
13600k.
Idle: 2 to 3 watts. Am running an undervolt of 0.085 and I turned off g4m0r b00st fe4tur3s in bios
135 watts is the maximum, and also sustained, all-core load I’ve seen. Normal consumption for “low workload” is around 12-50 watts. Usually around 15-20 watts for stuff like typing this comment
I’m not sure about idle wattage, but my 13600k pull 175 watts under load.
I’m running it at 5.5ghz, though.
My 1400kf is overclocked and has all cores unparked so it idles at around 30W :I
The idle power consumption for my 12900ks is about 18 watts with a similar workload. (This is avg over 72 hours without games. About 350 watts in cinebench, 140 in a game). My 7950x would use about 75-80 watts and my 7950x3d uses about 50-60 idle.
Whole System: 13600K, b760m, rtx4080, 1 m2 ssd, 1 sata ssd, 1 cpu fan, 2 ram sticks, 850w gold power supply draws 55-60W when idle. Measured with a electricity cost meter.
I also recommend the following video. They compared real life power consumption, not like most youtubers, who only look at maximum power draw or gaming.
Not a 13600K exactly, but my system with a 13700K idles around 65W (measured from the wall with a Kill-A-Watt).
System specs:
- 13700K, power limited (PL1/PL2) to 165W
- MSI Z690-A PRO DDR5 Wi-Fi, C-states and other power saving features turned on
- Balanced power plan in Windows
- RTX 2070 Super
- 2 monitors - 1 27" 1440p 120Hz monitor plugged into the RTX 2070 Super, and the other a 27" 1440p 60Hz monitor plugged into the motherboard (I’ve heard this setup reduces idle consumption compared to plugging both into the RTX 2070, but I haven’t done a comparison)
- Corsair RM650x power supply
- 5 Arctic P12 A-RGB fans set to a dim green
I have a 13700k (which is pretty much the 14600) and my CPU sits around 25-30w as I type this. I played a bunch of games last night then it’s done nothing overnight but left on. It’s average power draw is still at 37w. Peaked at 131w when gaming. It can draw 300w when benchmarking.
This is surprisingly higher than other people who are claiming whole system at 10w. I find that a little hard to believe with the heat this dissapaits. It does feel more like an old school 30W light bulb amount of heat. Very technical I know.
Not sure how accurate HWINFO is either though.
Undervolting, is more of a temperature thing than something that truly makes a financial difference on the power bill, we are talking pocket change differences or less per month, or even per year. You have to decide on what your main priority is, if power consumption is priority 1, then get yourself a notebook, that’s exactly what they are tailor made for, if smooth gaming is your highest priority, then power consumption will have to be higher to attain that and think about how many hours out of those 12 per day you will be gaming on average. The reality is, any modern desktop CPU, and its accompanying hardware has terrific abilities to be ultra low power, you just have to know how to configure it, so learn as much as you can about your UEFI settings and how a modern Windows 11 installation handles power, read about how notebooks do it and emulate that, it’s all really the same shit anyways.
13600k & 14600k owners, what is your idle and/or low workload power consumption?
i undervolted my 13600k,. without performance loss,.
idle power - 2.5watts ;
few chrome (currently using) - 4-10watts ;
max powerdraw in cbr23 - 125-128watts (from ~180watts);
low workload (10 chrome tab+ background download+ watching movie+ recording+ spotify -20 min avg https://imgur.com/a/GFVmZ9i 22watts) - 22wattssome gaming- mostly below 50watts,.
https://imgur.com/a/KGMtTjO ; https://imgur.com/a/RytZQSQ ; https://imgur.com/a/uZIv3RS13600kf, idle 15w average.
At max 161w
it will be between 75-150w for idle-light tasks, with full power being considerably more but adjustable to whatever you want.
amd chips tend to consume less power.
Undervolted 14700k here. Idle in single digits. most acoustic intensive games I see peaks of 120, with 80 to 90 in average