What is the minimum UPS needed for 8-core Mac Pro?

Question

What is the minimum UPS needed for 8-core Mac Pro?

I'm in the market for a UPS system. I currently have a PowerMac G5 Dual 2.0, but will upgrade to an 8-core Mac Pro when Leopard ships. So, I obviously want to invest in a UPS which will handle the 8-core.

I've read wildly varying suggestions for what is minimally acceptable on the Mac Pros, ranging from 750va to 1500va. Will the 8-cores drastically increase the minimum needed? I only need 5 minutes of uptime. I'd like to stick with the 1000va units if possible, as the dual online units in the 1500 range are ridiculously expensive.

I want to get an full dual conversion online UPS this time, as my apartment has horrid power fluctations (From my understanding, the line interactive units won't fully protect against these power fluctuations) My APC unit ate batteries for breakfast and finally died, so I'm staying away from them. The Tripp-Lite SmartOnline series seems to be what I'm looking for, but haven't been able to find many personal experiences with them. Can anyone give a recommendation for these or other online units?

Thanks for any info you can provide.

Posted on Apr 11, 2007 2:50 PM

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Answer 1

Best reply

Kappy

Level 10

361,741 points

Apr 11, 2007 3:19 PM in response to Brett Walker1

A 4-core Mac Pro has a 970 watt capacity power supply which may very well be the same in the 8-core model. Assuming you had enough stuff installed to max out the power supply you'd need a UPS capable of that level.

One set of test data I've seen indicated a power consumption of 410 watts during usage and around 200 watts when sleeping. Mine consumes about 220 watts when in use and about 110 watts asleep. I have a 450 watt capacity UPS running my Mac Pro and so far it's been more than adequate. I have four hard drives, two optical drives, and the memory risers are fully populated with eight 512 MB DIMMs.

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Answer 2

The hatter

Level 9

60,980 points

Apr 11, 2007 3:29 PM in response to Brett Walker1

It has been reported that it is the wake from sleep draw that is the killer.

From one site, "power consumption remains unknown, but it should between 120W (Quad Core 2.66GHz Xeon 5355) and 160W." I thought the 5160 (3GHz dual-core) was 85W.

Be sure you are aware of performance of memory and threading, as well as how efficient applications will be. Tiger is very inefficient with using 4 cores and memory management.

http://www.barefeats.com/octopro1.html

410 watts to start up, idles at 300 watts, and peaks at 430 watts when running Doom 3.

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Answer 3

Apr 12, 2007 6:29 AM in response to Brett Walker1

The Mac Pro actually has a maximum power consumption of 1440W. However, the likelihood of you getting anywhere near that value is next to nothing. You have to max out consumption in your processors, PCIe bus (300W), SATA bus, PATA bus etc etc. It's not a thing that's easy to do.

As a general guidline, my Mac Pro will run perfectly well (which include at boot time and waking from sleep without a blip) on a 400W 600VA APC Back-UPS. While it does it's not something I would recommend and you at a minimum use a 600W UPS for a 4-core MP and an 800W UPS for a 8-core MP. Typically an MP will use around 200-300W even with the ATi X1900 XT unless you're working it hard.

Also, be wary of your display and peripherals. If you are connecting these to your UPS you have to allow for these too.

My APC unit ate batteries for breakfast and finally died, so I'm staying away from them.

I have to say that I've been extremely happy with all of the APC unit that I've gone through. Utlimately with APC you do get what you pay for and their lower series do tend to have issues have issues when used under conditional that are essentially out of spec. The APC Back-UPS RS 1000VA I'm currently using has been a true champion with my MP (and peripherals). If I were to upgrade I'd probably look at the Smart-UPS RT series.

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