| Joined: | Mon Apr 2nd, 2012 |
| Location: | South Lakeland, UK |
| Posts: | 4066 |
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Robert, do you have a cost for running MacPro v MacMini v iMac as £/hr?
Extracting that data could be complex and perhaps not especially useful...
To be honest I don't think it would be meaningful, other factors come into play. I tend to leave my computers running 24/7, the difference in computing power is like comparing the cost of running a Mini with the cost of running a Land Rover or a large limousine. We all know which would be cheaper to run, I grew up driving large powerful cars like the 3 litre Alvis, Land Rovers and my Rover 3500s but now drive a little Skoda diesel.
Since I switched from using my (dream machine) 6 core MacPro 5.1 with 8 internal drives and two 24" monitors running night and day, to a 27" i5 4 core 14.2 at the beginning of July, my electric consumption has plummeted. Depending on your monitor I would think a Mac mini would have the same effect, the two monitors which I use with the MacPro, consume very little power compared with the power gobbled by the MacPro. I did metered them for a while but decided it was the MacPro which was the villain of the peace! The monitors were small fry.
Here you can see the drastic reduction in the consumption of power. I was away for most of May and June but bought the iMac at the beginning of July. The router element in the lower graph also includes an LED lamp above my desk and various chargers for iPhone, MacBookPro and my iPad.
September was a five week month and October is only three weeks old so far, so a downward trend seems to be suggested.
I think personal usage patterns will have a large effect on consumption, I often start at 6am and work at the computer on and off until 11pm ish.
I have found the MacPro still consumes a significant amount of power over a week even when shut down, complete savings can only be achieved by switching off at the wall socket or pulling the plug. During Aug to Oct, I have scarcely used the MacPro, it was shut down but still plugged into the electric. This week I have now used the MacPro for three full days, I will be interested to see the figures on Sunday when I take the readings. In fact I am writing this with the MacPro!
I am looking forward to seeing the figures for November and December by which time the numbers should have stabilised and a broader view can be seen.
For browsing the internet, writing eMails and partaking in forums, the iMac is just fine. Even a bit of spreadsheet use or simple image editing but when dealing with large numbers of large images, terabytes of music files, other processor intensive and storage intensive tasks the Mac Pro is a clear winner with at least eight (maybe nine) internal bays available for hard drives including up to three very high speed PCIe slots for SSDs, which make the biggest improvement to performance per buck I have ever seen. The sheer convenience of being able to slide hard drives into the computer or even run very fast external drives on eSATA or Firewire means that for me at least the MacPro is an indispensable tool and manageable cost wise by employing the iMac(s) for low demand tasks.
So that's my take on the computer side, for now.
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Robert.