That sounded crazy for me, but with 40 eurocents per kWh in Germany (average price per some article) I came up with 88 euro per year (7.5 per month), so close enough. Still crazy. So, energy efficient hardware can save hundreds of euro per year.
I'm in Latvia and our current electricity price is 0.14 EUR/kWh. 0.40 seems insanely high - like, 2022 end of summer high. Or maybe Germany has a shitty power grid and generation infrastructure (spoiler: it does).
My current price in The Netherlands is still 92 eurocents per kWh. But the government pays the difference over 40c. I expect my price to go down soon...
Manufacturers like to advertise "maximum power", ignoring the fact that an AP transmitting at 3x the power of a phone means that the phone will be able to see the AP but the AP won't see the phone. For Wi-Fi, a balanced low power environment is generally better, it creates less interference and allows more power saving. Give me more spatial streams and higher antenna gain instead of more TX power!
My guess is most of the power draw is the 10GBe ports. Even with EEE they are incredibly power hungry and with Intel NIC's recently having issues with green ethernet topology (it's disabled by default in drivers) I suspect, whatever NIC this router is using (Broadcom seems to be the only other player with economical 10GBe PHY's) has EEE disabled by default as well.
I'd be willing to bet if the handshake was at 1GBe (which would make this entire router kind of unnecessary) the overall power draw with a maxed SoC and WiFi radio would be pretty low, ~24w like most current routers.
The other reason there seems to be so much headroom in modern PSU's is for USB accessories. Many people plug a USB 3.0 HDD\SSD into their router and those alone can draw 12w and the USB 3.1 standard required headroom for 15w.
Well the good point is that it finally have 10Gb port... Maybe time to upgrade router next year, hopefully to something that use little less power to make this same...
Everyone will have a subscription soon. Cisco, Ubiquiti, TP-Link, Linksys and Netgear are all subscription-based products. You can opt out, but you wouldn't want too.
More likely 4 10Gb ports, so you don´t need separate 10gb hub... But with this and separate 10gb hub you can get up to 10Gb connection... But that 10Gb hub cost extra and is separate device. Not sure what is better solution. If this run hot allready, separate box could divide the heat wider.
Those routers just aren't made for our European brick&mortar homes. A standalone unit like that wil only work well in 1 room and maybe in 2.4GHz in the next room. Most installs are next to the cable or fibre modem in the basement and a good signal passing through a concrete and insulated floor 30cm thick is just not going to happen. Pretty useless without multiple sattelites in mesh and they better be wired. Getting wifi 6 (or 7) working well in a house like that is better done with multiple AP's and a central firewall/router.
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15 Comments
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dontlistentome - Tuesday, March 14, 2023 - link
Just looked up the TPlink one - it has a 75w PSU. That's madness.Even if it uses only a third of that, it's going to cost €100/£90 a year in power alone in much of Europe.
skaurus - Tuesday, March 14, 2023 - link
That sounded crazy for me, but with 40 eurocents per kWh in Germany (average price per some article) I came up with 88 euro per year (7.5 per month), so close enough. Still crazy. So, energy efficient hardware can save hundreds of euro per year.antonkochubey - Tuesday, March 14, 2023 - link
I'm in Latvia and our current electricity price is 0.14 EUR/kWh. 0.40 seems insanely high - like, 2022 end of summer high. Or maybe Germany has a shitty power grid and generation infrastructure (spoiler: it does).KantoorLezer - Wednesday, March 15, 2023 - link
My current price in The Netherlands is still 92 eurocents per kWh. But the government pays the difference over 40c. I expect my price to go down soon...Samus - Wednesday, March 15, 2023 - link
Most office PC's still idle around 40w and that's 24/7 best case scenario (since 8 hours a day they are actively used.)notR1CH - Tuesday, March 14, 2023 - link
Manufacturers like to advertise "maximum power", ignoring the fact that an AP transmitting at 3x the power of a phone means that the phone will be able to see the AP but the AP won't see the phone. For Wi-Fi, a balanced low power environment is generally better, it creates less interference and allows more power saving. Give me more spatial streams and higher antenna gain instead of more TX power!Samus - Wednesday, March 15, 2023 - link
My guess is most of the power draw is the 10GBe ports. Even with EEE they are incredibly power hungry and with Intel NIC's recently having issues with green ethernet topology (it's disabled by default in drivers) I suspect, whatever NIC this router is using (Broadcom seems to be the only other player with economical 10GBe PHY's) has EEE disabled by default as well.I'd be willing to bet if the handshake was at 1GBe (which would make this entire router kind of unnecessary) the overall power draw with a maxed SoC and WiFi radio would be pretty low, ~24w like most current routers.
The other reason there seems to be so much headroom in modern PSU's is for USB accessories. Many people plug a USB 3.0 HDD\SSD into their router and those alone can draw 12w and the USB 3.1 standard required headroom for 15w.
Wrs - Wednesday, March 15, 2023 - link
Aren't the antennae on a router a fair bit larger than on a phone? That would suggest they can listen better and justify a stronger transmit radio.Skeptical123 - Thursday, March 16, 2023 - link
Yup. ignore notR1CHhaukionkannel - Tuesday, March 14, 2023 - link
Well the good point is that it finally have 10Gb port...Maybe time to upgrade router next year, hopefully to something that use little less power to make this same...
Jeff72 - Wednesday, March 15, 2023 - link
Next router won't be Netgear due to their pushing subscriptions. Probably Asus next.Samus - Wednesday, March 15, 2023 - link
Everyone will have a subscription soon. Cisco, Ubiquiti, TP-Link, Linksys and Netgear are all subscription-based products. You can opt out, but you wouldn't want too.Dug - Wednesday, March 15, 2023 - link
10Gb WAN and 1Gb LAN. Good job Netgear. Couldn't even spend the extra $4 for at least 2.5Gb LAN?haukionkannel - Thursday, March 16, 2023 - link
More likely 4 10Gb ports, so you don´t need separate 10gb hub...But with this and separate 10gb hub you can get up to 10Gb connection... But that 10Gb hub cost extra and is separate device. Not sure what is better solution. If this run hot allready, separate box could divide the heat wider.
johanpm - Thursday, March 23, 2023 - link
Those routers just aren't made for our European brick&mortar homes. A standalone unit like that wil only work well in 1 room and maybe in 2.4GHz in the next room. Most installs are next to the cable or fibre modem in the basement and a good signal passing through a concrete and insulated floor 30cm thick is just not going to happen. Pretty useless without multiple sattelites in mesh and they better be wired. Getting wifi 6 (or 7) working well in a house like that is better done with multiple AP's and a central firewall/router.