E5620 vs L5630/40 idle power?

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Diavuno

Active Member
Whats the idle power draw of the E5620 Vs L5640 or L5640

Clearly of the two L chips one is a quad the other a hex. So one will draw more.

Each of the three chips is rated at the same voltage range, and we always talk about max TDP, but has anyone run power tests at idle?

Does the E5620 REALLY draw 80w at idle? I think not. but at idle would the E5620 draw more/less than a similar L series quad like the L5630? I understand there is a minor difference in clock speed, but I'm sitting at idle 95% of the time.



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Terry Kennedy

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Jun 25, 2015
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Does the E5620 REALLY draw 80w at idle?
I don't think it is anywhere close to that. I have a pair of E5620s in an X8DTH-iF w/ 96GB of DDR3-1333 ECC RDIMM, 16 7200 RPM drives and a bunch of other stuff (Intel X540-T1, 3 SAS controllers, etc) and the system idles at a little over 300W input power. I can't believe that more than half of that is the two CPUs.
 

cheezehead

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Sep 23, 2012
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Can't judge it by TDP anymore, you could years ago but now days it needs to be actual test builds.

I have a 135W TDP proc which with server motherboard (IPMI & HBA enabled) and ram (no drives) idles at under 60W (110v @ 60Hz)

Power And Heat - Overclocking Intel’s Xeon E5620: Quad-Core 32 nm At 4+ GHz

Intel Xeon L5640 60w Dual Six Core Benchmarks and Review

A comparison of power draw between the Intel L5630 and the X5680 in a Dell R610 chassis. • /r/homelab

You'll need to lookup each proc to get a rough idea....it's highly doubtful in many cases when spanning generations of CPU's that there will be direct comparison found. What you may find is a comparison between one of your procs and a reference proc...then find another comparison to the same ref proc and another proc you're looking at to gauge what the power consumption would be.

Unless you have all three chips and a power meter, you'll end up with some fuzzy math to figure out what's better. If you have none of them and each of them meet your performance requirements then figure out what say 5watts costs you to run 24/7 for however long your planning on running the gear. If it's a $20 electricity savings over 3yrs and the part costs $50 more, your better off buying the slightly more power hungry chip.
 
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CJ145

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Mar 11, 2015
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TDP stands for Thermal Design Power. It has nothing to do with idle usage, or even peak usage. It's simply the target envelope the cooler should be designed for.
 

Diavuno

Active Member
Can't judge it by TDP anymore, you could years ago but now days it needs to be actual test builds.

I have a 135W TDP proc which with server motherboard (IPMI & HBA enabled) and ram (no drives) idles at under 60W (110v @ 60Hz)

Power And Heat - Overclocking Intel’s Xeon E5620: Quad-Core 32 nm At 4+ GHz

Intel Xeon L5640 60w Dual Six Core Benchmarks and Review

A comparison of power draw between the Intel L5630 and the X5680 in a Dell R610 chassis. • /r/homelab

You'll need to lookup each proc to get a rough idea....it's highly doubtful in many cases when spanning generations of CPU's that there will be direct comparison found. What you may find is a comparison between one of your procs and a reference proc...then find another comparison to the same ref proc and another proc you're looking at to gauge what the power consumption would be.

Unless you have all three chips and a power meter, you'll end up with some fuzzy math to figure out what's better. If you have none of them and each of them meet your performance requirements then figure out what say 5watts costs you to run 24/7 for however long your planning on running the gear. If it's a $20 electricity savings over 3yrs and the part costs $50 more, your better off buying the slightly more power hungry chip.
Very helpful link.

It looks like the delta at idle between the top end and the l5630 is only 20w at idle....

I think I'm good with my e5630.

I may pull the second chip per node, but I'd I need the dimms I can reinstall.
 

frogtech

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Jan 4, 2016
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Most chips in the same generation of products tend to share pretty similar idle wattages don't they?

The "low power" L series chips are kind of a misnomer. I tend to think you'd only see the difference during a completely full load.
 

Diavuno

Active Member
Most chips in the same generation of products tend to share pretty similar idle wattages don't they?

The "low power" L series chips are kind of a misnomer. I tend to think you'd only see the difference during a completely full load.
At idle, among the same generation core counts seem to be the biggest factor, follows by base clock. The rest (c states and multipliers) is going to clock down with various power features.

But under load its another story.

Since my load is 95+% file and print I'm always at idle.