M1 Mac Mini has dropped my electricity bill by almost 50%

[tornado99]

I said desktop, not discrete gpu by itself. look Up any desktop review

I think a new 2020/2021 desktop would idle at far less than 70W. But ok, let's take 400W rendering for 4 hours, 70W idling for 12 hours, and 0W sleep for 8 hours. That's 2.4 kWh per day. And a M1 mini would be 40W rendering for 4? hours, 7W idling for 12 hours, and sleep. That's 0.4 kWh. Wow - a saving of 2 kWh...

But then this guy in Brazil presumably has a fridge, freezer, electric grill, microwave, toaster, washing machine, lights, not to mention a monitor for his M1 Mini. All of which use 10s of kWh per day.

So you've saved 80% on your computer electricity (excluding monitor), but your household bill is not going to drop 50%, because the majority of it comes from other stuff.

Oh and an LG Ultrafine 5K draws 140W, so your full M1 Mini video-editing workstation would actually be drawing 150W+ all the time its on.

 

[thunng8]

I think a new 2020/2021 desktop would idle at far less than 70W.

nope. Also sleep is not 0w. Desktops use approx 10w sleeping.

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I do agree on your other points though With other appliances which I already mentioned before.

 

[plinden]

I'm taking the OP's post at face value - I see no reason for him to lie about how much his electricity use has changed. You are all trying to force a US narrative, and a US narrative that's not even true for everyone, onto someone whose living situation you know nothing about.

I can only speak for myself. I live in California and last month we used 406kWh. That's with two adults working from home, and one high schooler doing online schooling. I have an EV but working from home has cut my daily driving to a fraction of what it was, using 200-300kWh per month less than before lock-down.

Daily baseline is about 12kWh 10kWh, ie when we don't use the washing machine/dryer or EV charging, both of which account for the difference between 360kWh (12x30kWh) 300kWh (30x10kWh) and 406kWh. Usage when no one's home (we took a three week vacation a couple of years ago) use is about 4.5kWh, ie fridge and whatever other trickle current there is. We kept the router running for the security cameras. That means two adults and a teenager use about 7kWh 5kWh per day for general living uses.

Our computer equipment is two MBPs and an MBA, and one external monitor.

I know a lot of people report using much more electricity, but I'm not going to say they're talking BS just because it doesn't match my own experience.

Edit, I accidentally uploaded a screenshot of our usage for May 2020 - added 2021 below, kept the 2020 one. So baseline usage was about 10kWh a day last month. Main difference between 2020 and 2021 is our older daughter was living with us then.

 

[tornado99]

Boiling a kettle for 2 cups of tea uses more electricity than leaving your "not a shiny M1" desktop sleeping all day. It's all a question of scale.

I'm not say the OP is lying, I'm saying he is mistaken. It doesn't matter what part of the world you live in, the power draw of various home ampliances in proportion to one another will be the same.

 

[mi7chy]

nope.

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5950x is like comparing a drag car to a golf cart.

A more like for like comparison is AMD 4650G desktop APU which draws ~26W idle.

 

[plinden]

Boiling a kettle for 2 cups of tea uses more electricity than leaving your "not a shiny M1" desktop sleeping all day. It's all a question of scale.
View attachment 1798187

I'm not say the OP is lying, I'm saying he is mistaken. It doesn't matter what part of the world you live in, the power draw of various home ampliances in proportion to one another will be the same.

Nope - we use zero electricity for heating or cooling and water, and cooking, because we have gas furnace, water heater and stove, and don't have AC.

Taking those out of the pie chart means e.g. 13/35 or 37% used for washer and dryer, which isn't true for us. It's less than 10%. Fridge is about 3kWh (we have a large American fridge) per day, ie about 25% of our monthly use.

But my situation is different from yours, and the OP's, and the average user out there.

None of you have explained how his usage dropped from about 520 to 260kWh. All your objections are "it's not possible that you halved your use!" so if you're not saying he's lying, I don't know what you're saying.

Replacing an inefficient, overclocked, PC used for 12+hours a day can account for most of the stated drop in kWh. I don't know if that's the actual cause, but it's possible.

So you all need to up your game. Either come out and say he's lying, or provide some sort of plausible alternative.

 

[tornado99]

Maybe his meter wasn't working properly.

Maybe he was running a bitcoin mining operation, but decided to stop as he'd made enough to order a M1 Mini with 16GB RAM.

Maybe his candle-lit apartment only contains a Mini and a gas-powered fridge.

Who knows.

 

[Fravin]

I'm not say the OP is lying, I'm saying he is mistaken. It doesn't matter what part of the world you live in, the power draw of various home ampliances in proportion to one another will be the same.

I think that whole discussion is so frustrating. I regret had telling you all about this.

As I told before in this thread (post 90), we don't have must of your chart stuff.

But, if you really wants to know, we do have a fridge, a microwave, a laundry machine, an electric iron, 3 led TVs, 2 AC, an iMac (my wife’s), a laser printer and a inkjet one. We have mobiles, iPads, a lot of chargers (for my camera’s battery, some battery operated tools), and one pair of bookshelf’s loudspeakers.​

​

We use gas for cook and for heat water.​

​

​

I've shown my consumption chart in post 32:

And I told you how I use the computer in post 48.

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.​

And now I became a liar...

 

[Fravin]

Maybe his meter wasn't working properly.

Maybe he was running a bitcoin mining operation, but decided to stop as he'd made enough to order a M1 Mini with 16GB RAM.

Maybe his candle-lit apartment only contains a Mini and a gas-powered fridge.

Who knows.

No, no, no.

I already. have told how I use my computer to work. Not mining, we use decent LED bulbs instead of candles and our Panasonic fridge is good enough.

This thread has gone too far. I wish I could delete it somehow. I'm gone.

 

[thunng8]

5950x is like comparing a drag car to a golf cart.

A more like for like comparison is AMD 4650G desktop APU which draws ~26W idle.

how can it be like for like when the 4650g system would be slaughtered by the m1 in video editing?

like I said before most desktop system with powerful Gpu idles at over 70w. I am 100% sure the op’s former desktop idles at well over 70w.

 

[mi7chy]

But, if you really wants to know, we do have a fridge, a microwave, a laundry machine, an electric iron, 3 led TVs, 2 AC, an iMac (my wife’s), a laser printer and a inkjet one. We have mobiles, iPads, a lot of chargers (for my camera’s battery, some battery operated tools), and one pair of bookshelf’s loudspeakers.

Probably not much can be done about the main culprits, the two ACs and fridge, but I went from 40" backlit LCD which consumes ~230W to 48" OLED that consumes between a low of ~40W for black background and a high of ~90W for white background and average around 50 to 60W for most content. No more heat radiating off of the OLED either so less work for AC. For PC, I'm anti-OC since the gain is miniscule while the power consumption is exponential and prefer to disable boost clock.

 

[tornado99]

Could the OP accidentaly have his previous CPU running at full clock speed i.e 4GHz 24/7 with not a P state or S state ever used. In which case his argument is upside-down. He isn't saving electricity by running the Mini, he was needlesly consuming way too much before.

According to Anandtech a Rocket Lake i9 could sustain 135W. That would get you an extra 100 kWh a month. Still not even half of the change he's observed. I'm sure there are other non-computing related factors he hasn't thought about.

 

[BigMcGuire]

No, no, no.

I already. have told how I use my computer to work. Not mining, we use decent LED bulbs instead of candles and our Panasonic fridge is good enough.

This thread has gone too far. I wish I could delete it somehow. I'm gone.

Don't let them get you down. Way too many people today get joy out of killing the joy of others. Macrumors is not the only place infested with this.

Who cares if they can't comprehend? Enjoy what you have and celebrate what happens. Don't let others prevent you from being happy.


I've had coworkers who had nearly $1000/mo summer electric bills and when I showed them my summer $40 bill they couldn't believe it. They didn't call me a liar, but they couldn't believe it. I took them to my house, showed them how a swamp cooler kept the house ~76F and how yes, I had a fridge, washer/dryer, TV, and a computer and I wasn't an electric control freak (<1000 sqft). I go their house and I see 2 floors (3000+ sq ft), AC running constantly, an electric car, 3-4 people using high electric draw devices, an electric stove, etc.

Who cares? Be happy and enjoy life while you can.

 

[southernapachi18]

A large desktop computer draws a lot of power but also puts out a lot of heat which can substantially increase the cooling costs when running AC. For instance, the current Mac Pro can output 345-1030 BTU/hour, depending on configuration, at idle. An M1 Mac mini is at 23 BTU/hour when idle, to a maximum of 133 BTU/hour at full load.

It would only have that kind of effective it was an extreme rig always running. Yet normal space heaters are hundreds of time more power hungry. Clearly if the m1 is working for him whatever he uses a pc for isnt anything extreme in the first place. so we know for sure that his pc isnt taking up up the majority of the electric bill
Lets say your PC draws 400 watts, and you game for six hours a day. That's 2400 watt hours, or 2.4 kWh, so that's 26 cents a day.

Over a month, that's less than $8.
So what your telling me is his electric bill is normally only 8 dollars a month and his mac m1 saved him 4?

 

[southernapachi18]

It's very possible. I can tell just by touching my gaming PC and my M1 Mac mini. It's a night and day difference.

"its possible" with no explanation as to why he thinks so. Cmom man......

 

[southernapachi18]

M1 Macs are very efficient but no, they're not that efficient, so there's something else going on. It's now the winter where you are, so were you running the AC a lot during the summer?

Lets say your PC draws 400 watts, and you game for six hours a day. That's 2400 watt hours, or 2.4 kWh, so that's 26 cents a day.

Over a month, that's less than $8.
So what your telling me is his electric bill is normally only 8 dollars a month and his mac m1 s

 

[Henry 3 Dogg]

I guess it could, depending on your actual power consumption. I see you're in Brazil which has about 1/5 the per capita electric power consumption of the US, so it would be easier for you to half power consumption by changing to a more efficient computer.

A PC with 850W power supply would draw about 150-200W when idle, or 5kWh per day (but a lot less if you put it into sleep mode) and maybe 400-450W when in use. So your old PC might be using up to 6-8kWh per day, compared to maybe 1-1.5kWh for the Mac mini.

Incidentally, a wattmeter is a great investment. Plug it into the socket, then plug the device into it, and you'll see how much power something uses. Use it for a couple of weeks to get an overview of normal use. Some smart switches have a built-in wattmeter so you can get the ability to switch things off automatically.

I'm running a headless, 2018 Mac Mini with 3.2GHz 6 core Intel i7 and 64 GB DDR4, 2TB SSD. managed by Remote Desktop as a server.

Running on that are two VMWare Fusion virtual machines.

VM1 is running Ubuntu Server 20.04 in turn running Wordpress and therein several websites and various other odds and sods like auto updating Let'sEncrypt certificates.

VM2 in running Windows server 2019 in turn running DotNetNuke for a couple more websites and hmailserver for all the websites, MS SQLServer is running for the DNN applications, and for hMailServer .

A PostgreSQL server is running in directly in MacOS.

I'm currently metering it and it's running at 11w.

That peaks during backups and is higher if I leave the virtual Windows Server screen uncollapsed. But it averages at under 15w

It runs 24 hours a day and response is always instant.

24h x 15w = 0.36 Kwh per day

And it's almost silent.

I was metering it to decide whether to move it to to an M1 Mac mini. But it just isn't worth the bother.

 

[uller6]

No, no, no.

I already. have told how I use my computer to work. Not mining, we use decent LED bulbs instead of candles and our Panasonic fridge is good enough.

This thread has gone too far. I wish I could delete it somehow. I'm gone.

I swapped out my iMac Pro for an M1 iMac last summer. My electric bills also went down by ~50% after the change, depending on time of year, other usage, etc. Yes, the M1 is that much of an improvement over a Xeon, especially if the machine runs as a server and doesn’t sleep.

Don’t let all the haters get you down OP.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

Recently I changed my mighty PC for a M1 Mac Mini… But the power bill has dropped half. In the first month i tought it could be an error somehow. But we are in the fourth month and the bill kept the new level.

Is it possible that M1 is that power efficient?

You’re not asking the correct question. The question is - “Is it possible that your old PC was that inefficient?”

With my electric heat pump, my electric clothes dryer, my electric range, my electric water heater, and my 3 electric refrigerator/freezers - there’s no WAY that a single computer short of a Cray-1 could be even CLOSE to half of my electric bill.

Now, if you just don’t use electricity other than your computer and some very efficient LED lights then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ maybe?

 

[BigMcGuire]

You’re not asking the correct question. The question is - “Is it possible that your old PC was that inefficient?”

With my electric heat pump, my electric clothes dryer, my electric range, my electric water heater, and my 3 electric refrigerator/freezers - there’s no WAY that a single computer short of a Cray-1 could be even CLOSE to half of my electric bill.

Now, if you just don’t use electricity other than your computer and some very efficient LED lights then ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ maybe?

This is it.

When I lived in a much much much cheaper house (10 years ago) - it had no heating, no AC but it did have a swamp cooler. Everything else was gas. Our summer electric bills could be in the $30s even with swamp cooler running almost 24/7.

Now compare a 1200w gaming PC vs a Mac mini or a MBA 13' and that can be some pretty significant savings.

But for most people I know who live "down the hill" in Los Angeles - a $400-700 electric bill is normal in the summer. Add an electric car and that can be normal even in winter. A 1300w gaming computer isn't going to do much even if running full tilt (which it doesn't most of the time).

Macs can be incredibly efficient. I remember hooking my MBA 13' to a kill-a-watt and saw it using a few watts idling vs my gaming PC which idled around 160watts.


Now, I live "down the hill" and with our EV we're consuming 1000+ kWh a month and having AC is awesome... I've got 2 people in my house consuming electricity. A gaming PC isn't going to make much of a dent now.

 

[uller6]

This is it.

When I lived in a much much much cheaper house (10 years ago) - it had no heating, no AC but it did have a swamp cooler. Everything else was gas. Our summer electric bills could be in the $30s even with swamp cooler running almost 24/7.

Now compare a 1200w gaming PC vs a Mac mini or a MBA 13' and that can be some pretty significant savings.

But for most people I know who live "down the hill" in Los Angeles - a $400-700 electric bill is normal in the summer. Add an electric car and that can be normal even in winter. A 1300w gaming computer isn't going to do much even if running full tilt (which it doesn't most of the time).

Macs can be incredibly efficient. I remember hooking my MBA 13' to a kill-a-watt and saw it using a few watts idling vs my gaming PC which idled around 160watts.


Now, I live "down the hill" and with our EV we're consuming 1000+ kWh a month and having AC is awesome... I've got 2 people in my house consuming electricity. A gaming PC isn't going to make much of a dent now.

a $400-$700 monthly summer electricity bill is INSANE. I live in an old, leaky victorian house in DC (the swamp) and run AC + basement dehumidifier 6 months out of the year. Our largest electric bill ever was $300, when the weather was 110 for almost two weeks.

 

[FreakinEurekan]

a $400-$700 monthly summer electricity bill is INSANE. I live in an old, leaky victorian house in DC (the swamp) and run AC + basement dehumidifier 6 months out of the year. Our largest electric bill ever was $300, when the weather was 110 for almost two weeks.

Electricity in DC is under $0.14/KWh. Electricity in Los Angeles is almost $0.26/KWh.

 

[BigMcGuire]

Electricity in DC is under $0.14/KWh. Electricity in Los Angeles is almost $0.26/KWh.

Yup and for some of us just outside LA:

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[uller6]

Yup and for some of us just outside LA:

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Learn about Time-of-Use residential rate plans and why you should switch. Review pricing, options, FAQs and more.

www.sce.com

View attachment 2116320

wow, I didn’t realize power was that crazy expensive out on the west coast!

 

[Bodhitree]

No, no, no.

I already. have told how I use my computer to work. Not mining, we use decent LED bulbs instead of candles and our Panasonic fridge is good enough.

This thread has gone too far. I wish I could delete it somehow. I'm gone.

I just scanned a few pages of the thread, and found it quite informative. Hope you don’t mind the discussion OP. I didn‘t have a desktop for a long time and bought an M1 iMac when they came out, I looked a little bit into the energy usage and it seems quite efficient.