A motherboard is the main printed circuit board (PCB) in a PC or server. It connects all the components and supplies them with the power they need to run their respective tasks. The motherboard therefore consumes power, distributing it among the onboard components. Generally, the greater the capability of the components, the greater the power draw of the motherboard.
A motherboard is the main printed circuit board (PCB) in a PC or server. It connects all the components and supplies them with the power they need to run their respective tasks. The motherboard therefore consumes power, distributing it among the onboard components. Generally, the greater the capability of the components, the greater the power draw of the motherboard.
Research by the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers has found that the motherboard in a data center server consumes, on average, 10% of the server’s total power (IEEE, 2021). Tailpipe applies this factor to the power draw figures calculated for the other components – the CPU, RAM, GPU, and onboard storage disks. Motherboards are designed to be as energy efficient as possible, and so Tailpipe caps this 10% figure at 20 W.
It then multiplies this 10% motherboard figure by the number of hours the virtual machine has been utilized for:
Motherboard Energy Consumption (Wh) = (0.1 * (Power Draw of CPU, RAM, GPU, and Onboard Storage), capped at 20) * Number of Hours of Utilization
For example, if the components in a server were utilizing 150 W of power, Tailpipe would allocate 10% – 15 W – to the motherboard, resulting in a total power draw of 165 W. If the components were utilizing 300 W of power, Tailpipe would calculate 10% – 30 W – but cap this at 20 W, resulting in a total power draw of 320 W.
