We don’t have temperature drops so high as you during the winter. Actually, winter is so hot as summer down here.
I live in Rio. Here is hot as hell. AC runs all day long.
Got a tip for us?
Let us know
Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.
M1 Mac Mini has dropped my electricity bill by almost 50%
- Thread starter Fravin
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
We don’t have temperature drops so high as you during the winter. Actually, winter is so hot as summer down here.
I live in Rio. Here is hot as hell. AC runs all day long.
fair enough. I’m in the UK where we have to have the heating on in the middle of summer so that’s not a problem I’m familiar with …
Surely this is simple maths? You know how long each computer was on for and how much energy it used - so figure out their respective KWhour figures per month. Minus the smaller figure from the larger and times the remainder by your supplier's kwH unit rate (usually on the statement) to find out how much you are actually saving.
-> you can double the power saving from not having 850w-PSUed PC running, as the AC was basically running against a space heater.
I think it's about the climate, not the houses.
Down here in Brazil we have a high humidity weather. In Rio, where I live, we are about 80% Average Humidity during all year.
The temperatures goes from 86F to 105F during the whole year.
A/C is a must down here.
Was your 850W PSU 80+ certified? An inefficient PSU can generate a lot more heat and power draw.
So, usage did change after all and also no more GPU accelerated workloads like Davinci Resolve which are things the M1 can't compete against.
ITT:
Man is happy with the power efficiency of his M1
insecure gamers come out of the woodwork to prove him wrong
Man is happy with the power efficiency of his M1
insecure gamers come out of the woodwork to prove him wrong
The Mini is handling fine my workload. I'm very satisfied about their GPU performance.
And where does it show that the M1 Mac is the reason for the energy drop? I see nothing here.
ooops I'm sorry.
I'm not trying to prove anything here. Justa sharing with you what happened.
I'm sorry.
No need to be sorry. I'm happy your electric bill went down! Hey, that's extra $ in the pocket! I'd be happy too!
I'm just saying that drop in the bill have wowed me and I was wondering what should caused it. And the only thing that changed was the replacement of the computer.
I bought the Mini in February. Between Feb 10 and Mar 20 I kept booth running trying to make myself the switch. Them, I decided to sell the PC and keep the Mini for working.
As my workload increased and I had to stop gaming to handle the load, I minded buying a Mac. As the GPU and hardware prices were going crazy I sold the entire thing bought the M1 Mini and now I'm paying less for electricity. lol
Electricity difference between June 2021 and June 2020 is 220 kWh.
At 0.687 BRL per kWh of electricity you're saving 151.14 BRL ($29.98 USD) per month.
But you're spending 8699.00 BRL + 17% tax = 10177.83 BRL ($2019.09 USD) starting on a base Mac Mini M1.
You have to amortize the new Mac Mini M1 over 5.6 years to break even.
An accountant would say it doesn't make monetary sense like buying an EV to save on gas.
Last edited:
There's a difference of 240kwh between January and March.
Since you have an 850 watt PSU, lets assume that your computer is pulling 680 watts, which is 80% of the PSU's total capacity and the max it should pull, for 30 days every month. If my math is correct, 240000kwh / 680watts / 30 days per month = using your computer 11.76 hours per day at full power.
If that's the case, yes, it's possible that the M1 halved your power usage. I'd be more interested in what it is that you do, where your PC was unable to throttle and had to run at max speeds all day long.
Certainly using that much power would also generate excess heat, which would up any AC bill, so it's possible that if you worked on it just 8 hours, the rest is due to cooling costs.
Then I'm confused. Isn't your thread about you stating your PC was causing a spike in your electric bill and then you switched it for the M1 Mac your bill went down nearly half? That's exactly what you said and that's also your thread title. I don't see how this is possible. It's a good chance your electric company simply dropped their rates around the same time of you getting the M1 Mac.
I think it's less that your current machine is that efficient (although it is) but the hardware you were running before consumes a crazy amount of power and is really inefficient.
I'm used to work about 10 hours per day, and I would play for several hours at night.
But one thing in your post just came to may attention. My PC was set to squeeze i9 to provide the more performance. It was running overclocked. Perhaps this could let it in full throttle.
Well, it was a good computer. But i like M1 Mini most.
I have the same job done, with no extra efforts or hours consumed. I have a dead silent (my PC had 360 liquid cooling and 3 other fans) room and a drop in the power bill.
We've shown that it is definitely possible, given some assumptions about how the OP used his computer. And his graph shows power usage in kWh, not how much it cost him. It shows it dropped from around 530kWh/month to 260kWh/month
After I got an EV, my electricity consumption went up by 100-200kWh per month. I've no proof it was the purchase of the EV that caused my power bill to go up, but it coincided with the purchase, and is the most likely cause.