Measuring Energy Efficiency

System power-draw levels during a 9-hour workday. The percentages shown here are the power level amounts above the idle power level as compared to the idle power level. Intel® Core™2 Duo processor E6700 on the Intel® 965 Express chipset. See final page for system configuration details. Performance tests and ratings are measured using specific computer systems and/or components. Actual results may vary.

Each piece of this pie-chart represents the amount of time spent at a given system power-draw level. The percentages are the power level amount above the idle power level as compared to the idle power level. The main observation here is that over 34% of the time during the nine-hour working day— just over three hours—the system is at or near an idle power-draw level in this proposed methodology. More important however, is that all system power-draw characteristics – active, idle, and Standby – are in the context of a reasonable usage model. At the end of the day’s activities, the system is put to Standby for 15 hours, until it is awakened to start the next day. Accounting for this Standby time, the breakdown of system power-draw levels looks like this:

System power-draw levels during 24 hours. The percentages shown here are the power level amounts above the idle power level as compared to the idle power level. Intel® Core™2 Duo processor E6700 on the Intel® 965 Express chipset. See final page for system configuration details.