Intel NUC

Intel NUC 13 Pro Mini PC Running Linux: Power Consumption

Last Updated on October 30, 2023

CPU Sressed

We will use s-tui to stress the CPU.

s-tui

We can stress the CPU by changing the mode from monitor to stress. Here are the results for each machine.

Power Consumption under Full Load

Observations
  • As you can see, there is a stark difference in power consumption running the NUC 13 (i7-1360P) in different power modes. When the CPU is stressed, with the power saver mode enabled, the P-Cores run at 1100 MHz, the E-Cores run at 1100 MHz. With the balanced mode enabled, the P-Cores run at 3800 MHz, the E-Cores run at 2600 MHz. And with the performance mode enabled the P-Cores run at 4300 MHz, the E-Cores run at 3200 MHz.
  • For the i5-12400F, the P-Cores run at 3300 MHz in power saver mode, 4000 MHz in both balanced and performance modes. The processor has no E-Cores.
  • For the i5-10400F, the P-Cores run at 4000 MHz in all modes. The processor has no E-Cores.
  • Power usage figures are considerably higher if other system components (GPU, disk etc) are also stressed. The chart reflects power consumption stressing the CPU only. The maximum power consumption drawn when all system components are stressed is considerably higher for all machines.

Next page: Page 4 – Electricity costs

Pages in this article:
Page 1 – Power Consumption With System Idle
Page 2 – Power Consumption With Light Usage
Page 3 – Power Consumption With CPU Stressed
Page 4 – Electricity Costs


Complete list of articles in this series:

Intel NUC 13 Pro Mini PC
Part 1Introduction to the series with interrogation of system
Part 2Benchmarking the Mini PC
Part 3Installing Ubuntu 23.10 Desktop
Part 4Configuring Ubuntu 23.10 Desktop
Part 5Power Consumption
Part 6P-Cores and E-Cores
Part 7Gaming
Part 8Installing and Configuring Manjaro
Part 9BIOS options
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Nigel Bolton
Nigel Bolton
11 months ago

How many watts does the NUC’s GPU take when idling?

Patrick
Patrick
11 months ago

Very interesting article, thank you 🙂

We find using the NUC 13 Pro as a desktop machine with the Power Saver CPU governor enabled greatly limits its usability.

Do you mean the machine is noticeably slow even for basic usage (web surfing, watching videos, email, etc.)?

Dave "Nacho" Skelton
Dave "Nacho" Skelton
11 months ago

Have you tried to experiment with powertop to see if you can get the idle power consumption lower?