CWWK AlderLake-N100 Power Consumption
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I run pfsense CE 2.7.2 on the following hardware:
CWWK AlderLake-N100 CPU with 5 i226-V NICs, Samsung 8GB DDR5 4800 MHz PC5-38400 SODIMM and Intel OPTANE P1600X Series 118GB NVME drive.
4 of the 5 NICs have active connections. At idle my Kill-a-watt device shows 13 watts used. Is this reasonable for my configuration? Are there any suggestions on how to reduce power consumption even more?
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@kenw Yes it is - I don’t think you will be able to reduce that much further with 4 out of 5 NICs linked and using DDR5 memory and an optane drive. Starting to change hardware to save additional power will never be a good businesscase because the hardware cost will take tens of years to recoup by saving perhaps up to a watt or two per change (memory, SSD).
What you could do is check if your BIOS supports underclocking/undervolting the CPU/Memory. By reducing the base and especially the max turbo frequency you can both undervolt the CPU and perhaps the memory. That could likely save you perhaps 2-3w in IDLE and maybe 6-10w under load in your setup. With hardware like that I would not expect you will notice/measure any performance degradation by fx. Reducing base frequency a couple of 100Mhz, and reduce Turbo to half the current max, and then try to remove .1v or maybe even .2v from the CPU and memory voltage.
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@kenw But be advised: reaching a stable undervolted setup can be a real PAIN in the A** as it will require a lot of testing and crashes/reboots/console access. So I would never embark on that adventure when it comes to a firewall :-)
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Thank you for your help. I will leave things as is.
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@kenw as mentioned by @keyser even if you could shave off a few watts - is it worth the risk that might come with instability? Your not talking from going from 100w to 10w, lets say you could save 2 watts.
In the big picture at say 15 cents per kwh.. Do the math.. Your talking like $2.63 over the year..
And you might be below that or even if you were paying 50 cents a kwh your only talking $8.77 over the year..
This cost savings are in no way worth any effort even, or the risk of problems.
Now if you were talking say changing some hardware or whatever and went from 150W to 10 watts.. So a savings of like 180 dollars a year.. Hey such a savings might be worth even changing hardware - because you might recoup the cost of the new hardware in a few years.
