iMac Power Consumption

Question

Level 1

37 points

iMac Power Consumption

Spent about an hour or so searching the inter-tubes for this and I can't seem to find a specific answer. Looking to see what the power consumption of an iMac when just the screen is sleeping. Not the entire computer, just the screen. I've seen plenty of when any computer is in sleep mode.

I thought I stumbled on the answer with iStats, but it only shows that stat for a laptop. For the iMac (Late 2015 iMac 27") it does have a wattage stat, but it didn't have any kind of history like I could find with my 2017 13" MBP. It's also a different sensor(s) as it splits it into CPU and GPU and then give a Total. It looks like from Total that it's probably giving a good number as far as the computer, but not the display's power.

The reason I ask is that I've always set my computers to NOT sleep and just sleep the displays. I have a Hot Corner to immediately put the display asleep. Of course when I close the MBP it sleeps and that's fine. I just don't do that with the iMac. Mainly because of convenience and supposed issues when external drives are connected via hubs or directly to the iMac and have issues when a computer goes to sleep.

Other settings I have is I don't allow hard drives to sleep. And I don't use Power Nap. Not sure if Power Nap is a happy medium to Sleep Mode to draw less power, but not have any hard drive issues.

iMac 27″, macOS 12.5

Posted on Aug 8, 2022 8:01 AM

Reply

Answer 1

Best reply

Smilin-Brian

Level 9

54,945 points

Aug 8, 2022 8:06 AM in response to Mark Fusco

Get live expert assistance by contacting Customer Support by phone or chat:

Call Apple Support at 1-800-APLCARE. 📞
International Support. 🌐
Contact Apple Support. 📝
Chat using Messages. 💬

Reply

Answer 2

Mark Fusco Author

Level 1

37 points

Aug 8, 2022 8:34 AM in response to Smilin-Brian

Tried the Chat feature. Not sure they had the correct answer. I experimented with iStats. So Total Power is definitely total for the system. At the time I wrote the question FCPX was rendering, but now it's finished. So just operating the iMac with quite a few apps open but nothing really using a lot of CPU/GPU power was around 85-90 W. Apple said it the Idle power was about 70 W, though the page they sent me to says 60 W. I asked if Idle meant the computer was on including the monitor, or with the monitor off. They said with the monitor off.

I put the monitor to sleep for about 8 minutes and it dropped to a range 30-60 W. If the iMac was doing something it was in the upper range, but if it appeared to not be doing anything other than keep apps open it was closer to 40-45 W.

I didn't know if iStats was going to give me any data when I put the monitor to sleep as all the other historical data was blank. Maybe it's something that it's never pulled the data for in the past so it didn't save it. I'll play around with it.

The question though, is, other than power savings, it Sleep Mode/Power Nap going to introduce any issues? Specifically with external drives (HDD and SSD) and an external monitor.

Reply

iMac Power Consumption

Similar questions