[justmetoo]

I can't seem to find a wattage listed anywhere for the Mac Pro power supply (any of them, but maybe 2.66 GHz is what I'm curious about). Not on the Apple site. I even downloaded and looked in the thread where a copy of the service manual is linked (shhh), and no appendix or mention of those kind of details in that either...

I'm trying to match to a UPS [uninterrupted power supply]. If you know, let me/us know, and WHERE you got it!

Thanks!

[mduell]

Have you tried, oh I don't know, Apple.com?

# Line voltage: 100-120V AC or 200-240V AC (wide-range power supply input voltage)
# Current: Maximum of 12A (low-voltage range) or 6A (high-voltage range)

So about 1500VA for the Mac Pro, plus whatever your display needs.

[justmetoo]

Originally Posted by mduell

Have you tried, oh I don't know, Apple.com?
# Line voltage: 100-120V AC or 200-240V AC (wide-range power supply input voltage)
# Current: Maximum of 12A (low-voltage range) or 6A (high-voltage range)
So about 1500VA for the Mac Pro, plus whatever your display needs.

Thank you for your reply,
...but I guess a better question on my behalf would have been to ask advice on how to calculate the proper requirements for a UPS for a Mac Pro. How stupid of me to think about wattage rather than volts. Bad bad bad.
Have GREAT weekend.

[Scotttheking]

Wow, that is some insane power draw.

[derekn]

Here's Rick LePages article on the Xeon, according to Apple, the MacPro pulls about 980 watts (versus 1000 for the Quad G5) total, most of it dedicated to the PCI Express slots.

Macworld: News: Meet the Xeon: Inside the Mac Pro's processor

[mduell]

Originally Posted by justmetoo

Thank you for your reply,
...but I guess a better question on my behalf would have been to ask advice on how to calculate the proper requirements for a UPS for a Mac Pro. How stupid of me to think about wattage rather than volts. Bad bad bad.
Have GREAT weekend.

The proper way is to multiply the maximum volts on the AC side by the maximum current on the AC side, as I did in my first post. This gives you the maximum Volt-Amps, which is how UPSs are sized.
Wattage depends on power factor which should be close to 1, but it may not be in the worst-case situation.

[OreoCookie]

You can actually get a rough estimate on the Wattage by dividing the VAs by square root of 2 (approximately 1.41). This leads to an estimated 1060 W as maximum output for the psu.

If you want to get into a number game, then we can do the following: Let's assume the Mac Pro consumes a maximum of 980 W. The efficiency of common psus at approximately full load is roughly 70-85 %, let's take 75 %, so 735 W of power are at the disposal to the components inside the system. Each Xeon has a maximum power consumption of 80 W (65 W TDP), so we have 575 W left. Typical harddrives need 10-15 W each (SCSI drives may need a tad more, also during spin-up, drives need a lot more than that, as much as 30 W), so let's subtract 60 W (= 4x15 W), we still have 515 W.

Modern graphics cards may consume up to 140 W (x2), DVD burners need another 15 W each. 205 W are left for RAM, motherboard and one or two other PCIe expansion cards.

[mduell]

The APC UPS Selector recommends the Back-UPS RS 1500VA for a Mac Pro [Xeon 5100 (Dual)].

[baw]

Damn. It is like running a hair dryer.

[MaxPower2k3]

Originally Posted by baw

Damn. It is like running a hair dryer.

Well, keep in mind that all of the current/wattage ratings are maximums that the power supply can handle, not constants. While a hair dryer constantly pulls the full wattage it's rated for, a computer rarely gets close to its rated power. For one, most people won't have a Mac Pro with 4 HDDs, 2 optical drives, 8 DIMMs, all PCIe slots filled, and all USB/FW ports used, so that alone will significantly reduce power draw. And, even then, it would probably only hit the rated wattage while turning on (or if all components are under a heavy load)

[justmetoo]

Originally Posted by MaxPower2k3

... a computer rarely gets close to its rated power. And, even then, it would probably only hit the rated wattage while turning on (or if all components are under a heavy load)

This is true. I was using an older 1100 VA with one of the last generation PPC's when the power died. The UPS didn't last long, but long enough to save and shut down. HOWEVER, it was a completely different story when the unit was asleep and the power died. I tried to wake it to shut down properly, and it went into a fit: the power supply red light came on, the fans went supernova, etc. I could only shut down via holding the power button for 10 sec. Something to factor into your UPS decision. If you never turn it off, not as big a problem...

Thank you again mduell for explaining the UPS VA calculation. The specs on my UPS state a maximum wattage, NOT a VA, so hopefully you can understand why I was having an issue because I couldn't find a wattage for the MacPro power supply...

[amazing]

Here's a quote from the MacWorld 2.66 review:

"When we used an ammeter to test the power usage of the 2.66GHz Mac Pro against the Power Mac G5 Quad (4 mice; February 2006), we found that the Mac Pro definitely used less energy. The G5 used 92 percent more power when starting up, 88 percent more when running an Unreal Tournament 2004 demo, 62 percent more when idle, and 242 percent more when sleeping."

Macworld: Review: Mac Pro completes Apple's Intel lineup

[mkerr64]

i beleive the mac pro is 90 and the 30" monitor is 150ish

[dave a]

http://docs.info.apple.com/article.html?artnum=304387 claims that the wattage is 171 at idle and 250 at peak. That doesn't seem to match the volt-amp calculation. Can anyone with a kill-a-watt meter see what their Pro is really doing? I'm in the market but not if it sucks down more than 300 watts under normal use.

[cgc]

I read that the MacPro PS is rated at 1KW.

[dave a]

For what it's worth, actual use as measured by ArsTechnica confirms Apple's report and is actually a bit lower - 155 watts at idle (or so) and 200 watts at peak. I may still hold off a little while but it's becoming more attractive to get a Pro - 'course I don't know where I'll put it, I happily re-arranged furniture when moving from G4+AthlonPC to Mini.

[P]

Originally Posted by justmetoo

This is true. I was using an older 1100 VA with one of the last generation PPC's when the power died. The UPS didn't last long, but long enough to save and shut down. HOWEVER, it was a completely different story when the unit was asleep and the power died. I tried to wake it to shut down properly, and it went into a fit: the power supply red light came on, the fans went supernova, etc. I could only shut down via holding the power button for 10 sec. Something to factor into your UPS decision. If you never turn it off, not as big a problem...

Yep. Harddrives and fans spinning up, all at the same time, draw a lot more power than just the regular workload. Had the same story when I worked at a computer lab. When the power went, the machines did not come back up when it came back. They all tried to start at once, which blew the fuses. Quickfix was to pull all the plugs, fix the fuse (they were of the infinite just-flip-a-switch variety) and plug them in one at a time.

You can mitigate this on some harddrives by setting a delay before the HD spins up. You can stagger the drives to spread the load a bit - check the jumper settings for your drives for details.

[xperimentalmunggo]

I think I have a wattage problem with my mac

recently bought an 8-core on a 500 watt avr (havnt bought a good UPS the core drained me) and the system shuts down every 9-11pm everytime I start to do a massive rendering.

[mduell]

Yea. 500 watts is enough to idle your Mac Pro, but not nearly enough for full load.