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russell_314

macrumors 603
Feb 10, 2019
6,046
9,007
USA
Great video! Just as a tip for future videos maybe have the Mac mini not moving behind the text. It was making me dizzy but maybe that was just me.
 

mikeboss

macrumors 68000
Aug 13, 2009
1,518
791
switzerland
to know the power consumption with an active 10 Gb/sec connection would be very interesting. to my knowledge, no software can read the power consumption of the entire mac mini. peripheral components like the SSD or the NIC only have temperature sensors. the values displayed in a software regarding power consumption only refer to the SoC. so, in order to get meaningful values, you would have to measure what the machine draws from the mains socket.
 

DRDR

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 23, 2008
210
195
to know the power consumption with an active 10 Gb/sec connection would be very interesting. to my knowledge, no software can read the power consumption of the entire mac mini. peripheral components like the SSD or the NIC only have temperature sensors. the values displayed in a software regarding power consumption only refer to the SoC. so, in order to get meaningful values, you would have to measure what the machine draws from the mains socket.
To my knowledge "total power" is the total AC power coming into the machine.
 

mikeboss

macrumors 68000
Aug 13, 2009
1,518
791
switzerland
AFAIK, "total power" means power consumed by the package (M1/M2 XXX plus RAM). we'll see... will be interesting to see what your measurement with the kill-a-watt says. according to your logic, connecting an external device (for example a Thunderbolt SSD) would show up in the software...
 
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DRDR

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 23, 2008
210
195
I tested it with a Fibaro Wall plug which was giving my power readings every second. I let a run at 1,000 Mb/s, 2,500 Mb/s, 5,000 Mb/s and 10.000 Mb/s for one minute each, running Network Speed Test to a my Mac Studio to saturate the connection. The total power draw at the socket stayed at 15.5 W at all the time, will the iStat Menu power was around 12,3 W. So the energy consumption for 10 Gbit/s seems to be negligible. Which I cannot say for the Sonnet TB3 10 Gbit/s adapter I used before. Crazy!
 
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mikeboss

macrumors 68000
Aug 13, 2009
1,518
791
switzerland
I assume that apple uses the same chip (Marvell AQtion AQC113) as in the Mac Studio. according to this article

the max. power consumption is 2.5 Watts (3.3V, 762mA) which is a fraction of what the Thunderbolt 10 Gb/s adpaters used to consume. thanks for conducting these tests!
 
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DRDR

macrumors regular
Original poster
Jul 23, 2008
210
195
Thanks for motivating me!

The power stayed at 15.5 W when only running the network test app. When I open the App Store it jumped to over 20 W. When doing nothing it went as low as 10.9 W and sometimes under 10 W.
 
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