To me, the energy/h column looks sufficient for that.
For my x86 I've added a comment at the end of the long line that the mentioned 20W was while routing 900mbit (as otherwise my x86-values would be unrealistic, as although a x86 has more CPU power, it will also draw a lot more power, if the CPU really gets under fire. So 20W is max power in my current scenario (not theoretical max power consumption of the CPU in the device).
Once I find time for SQM or other typical router scenarios that show more max power, I would then post an update of that single line or add a second line.
Intersting comment. I guess for the actual measurements that is orthogonal as we measure the energy/power before the power supply units and hence the efficiency of the power supplies factor in. One more argument for calculating long term average power numbers, as these will sort of account for non-linearity in PSU efficiency, assuming the sample period contains typical usage patterns, no?
It is tempting to add another column for model and make of the PSU, but I think this is taking things too far... as the "table" is already quite unwieldy.
Speaking of unwieldy, @tmomas had a great suggestion, namely putting the data into a linked editable spreadsheet so that data entry and formatting is less of a chore and would make adding columns a piece of cake.
Anybody opposed (or for) this approach, please let us know.
for custom x86 builds you would mention a long list of components anyway, one component being the chosen PSU.
for off-the-shelf router/device (x86 or any other) you would just mention nothing about a PSU, then people would get the idea that you have been using the default PSU which was packaged with the device. Even though vendors change such default PSUs frequently, I would assume that there is no noteworthy difference to insist on mentioning it in the list.
if you had purposely chosen to use a custom PSU for an off-the-shelf device, you could just mention the PSU in the details column. People would get the idea to look there if the same device appears several times with different power readings.
But since this has world wide readers, mentioning whether it was US or non US (115V or 230V power outlet) might make a small difference to avoid people scratching their heads about different power readings, as 115V usually has a bit less PSU efficiency.
OK, added that field (voltage @ frequency) and tried to fill in the values. @Arie I filled in 230@50 for you, if this is wrong, please let me know what would be correct. Thanks
Don't have the time to do a ton of data collection, but since it came up in another thread. I have a Zotac Zbox CI 327 running a celeron 3450 which is a bit older, but basically a decent base for an x86 router (it has dual ethernet built in for example, it's fanless, it was pretty cheap). I'm running it as a media pc. At idle my kill-a-watt meter shows between 4 and 5 watts (it kind of oscillates back and forth). Running a speed test it shows 7-9 watts, with a few peaks to about 11 watts. This is actually running firefox browser on the box and doing a waveform bufferbloat test on the box.
Power consumption is the box + its power supply + several USB hubs and various USB devices, but doesn't include the monitor. Also it's power factor corrected, not a VA measurement.
If I were going to guess at its power draw in real life as a headless router, I'd guess less than 5.5 watts long term avg on this basis, and very likely something like 4.5 to 5.
For comparison sake, quad core ARM Cortex-A53 processor that is in many AX routers is more than 2x faster then Celeron 3450 in single and multicore benchmarks.
I’ve just checked (quickly with a smart plug monitor), my home network setup is composed by
NanoPi R4S
Netgear R7800
8 ports managed switch
3x RaspberryPI 4B (one with an attached SSD mSata and one with an external 4” display)
Apple Watch charger
iPad Air as kiosk
Netatmo Thermostat gateway
Amazon Echo Studio
HomePod mini
500VA UPS
Citation needed, please. Hard to believe that an arm budget 64bit in-order core design from 2012 can dominate a 2016 out-of-order design, when both are in the same range of frequencies. N 3450 uses goldmont cores that wikipedia believes to be similarly performant as arm A-72 cores. And A72 is considerably more performant than A53 according to all measurements I saw (caveat not much).
Now it is well possible that A53 consumes much less power/energy than N3450 or A72, but for a performance based claim, linking ot some numbers might be helpful.
When frequency and number of cores are equal they are close overall but individual scores vary greatly. In modern SoC A57 is supplemented with NSS acceleration cores to help where A57 is weak, mainly in encryption.
You seem to be shifting the goalposts here somewhat. Your initial claim was for:
Now you are presenting numbers for A57, the higher performant "big brother" to A53. Sure A57 and A53 often come as gib-little systems, but please make up you mind here.
Finally A57 at 2.1GHz beating N3450 at 1.1 GHz by 100-100*9361/13173 = 28.94 %-age points is also not compatible with your initial claim. Mind you this is still about your performance claim on the power side A53/57 might "wipe the floor" with N3450 for al I know.
Mind you, I have no pony in this race, and am sure a lot of ARM cores will beat N3450/goldmont, but A53/57 do not seem to be among those that knock out 2016 celerons.
Especially for ARM, there is also a huge importance on the I/O capabilities of the SOC - the CPU side might be fast, but that doesn't necessarily translate to fast routing capabilities (x86 is more uniform in that regard, without much variation, making it easier to guess/ extrapolate the performance of faster/ slower systems).
Very simple example, the mt7622bv based e8450/ rt3200 vs the ipq8071a based ax3600 - both are (almost) clocked the same, both are using cortex a53 cores (two vs four, but as routing is inherently single threaded, that doesn't make that much of a difference in terms of shear routing throughput (in terms of servicing wired- and wireless, as well as VPN and similar topics concurrently it certainly does)). On paper, ipq807x wins (two more cores, higher graded wireless, usually more RAM), in practice mt7622bv has a better I/O setup (and much better optimized drivers, with offloading capabilities supported by OpenWrt) and does beat ipq8071a easily. Now if the dormant NSS cores were supported by OpenWrt (and really supported via the mainline kernel and used to their full extent by netfilter, the crypto core, etc.), that would turn this comparison on its head and literally wipe the floor with mt7622bv (but in this case, the performance wouldn't come from the a53 cores, but the little endian ubicom32 derived NPUs) - but it isn't…
Shared in the hope this might help others make informed choices about running costs vs investment costs.
My DIY ubuntu based core 2 duo router/nextcloud server + docsis cable modem draw ~50-80W as reported by the UPS they are both attached.
Investment cost for the core 2 duo (including a spare nic) was ~$50 USD. Electrical generation cost in my location is ~0.12 USD/kWh (about twice that if you include distribution costs, fee's taxes, etc.) So about $50-$100 per year in energy costs depending on how I want to view my electrical cost (some of the distribution cost is based on usage, the other fixed costs I have to pay regardless of consumption).
I am running two AP's, an r7500v2 (running openwrt - $60 used) and an old Asus n66u (bought new, do not remember what it cost, list price is $90) but I don't have power consumption measurements for those.
My home network is mostly a hobby but I am completely addicted to the stability, ease of updating, and flexibility the "DIY" router provides.
Depends, some contracts are still on last years reasonable ~25ct/kWh and some new contracts want ~100 ct/kWh...
Reminds me, I still want/need to measure energy consumption on my raspberry4 (on 32bit raspbian) doing duty as GPS-disciplined NTP server... (got side-tracked into measuring the entertainment devices stand-by power draw, not pretty*).
*) I admit that I had been pretty cavalier about energy consumption in the past, but I think independent of the current immediate cause for looking to minimize power consumption, it is something I want to be more attentive to and consider it at least equally to convenience.
as the "table" is already quite unwieldy.
