What is the power consumption of an average Mac Pro?
 

If somebody could figure this out it would be a great help. I am building a set of edit suites in a yet to be renovated building and the architect needs to make a BTU calculation as well as figure out how many 20 amp circuits to install. Apple only provides maximum amperage (it's 12a for 120 AC) for a maxed out 8-core. I only intend to add some memory and a couple of drives, no extra boards. If I had access to an 8-core Mac Pro I could set my Kill-A-Watt meter on it but I don't.

Any help would be truly appreciated.

Don't know how helpful this will be, but last summer I measured the power my G5 Quad was pulling and I think it was about 400w during normal operations. Don't know if the new machines are more or less efficient...

The 12A provided by apple is the max current (at 110V). I think you can use this value per machine. Don't forget the displays. My 23" ACD uses about 70 watts (that should be less than 1 amp at 110V.
My dual 2.3 G5 consumes a steady 320 watts under load. (that would be around 3-4 amps at 110V). Consider about 20-40 watts per hard drive.
Also in the Mac Pro manual it states that the 4 pci cards shouldn't consume more than 300 watts together.
Looks like the computer itself uses around 400-500 watts depending on #processors and speed. Thus, it makes sense that the power supply's max is at around 1 kwatt. Although, personally, I think this wattage seems frighteningly high. I think even the 300 watts of my G5 is crazy.

Dino

I don't have any exact numbers or anything, but I just thought I'd mention that when I turn on the Mac Pro, it makes all the lights in the house flicker.

I have access to a Dual 2gHz G5 and a couple of Dual Core Intels which seem to use the same amount of power. Around 300 to 500 watts. I assume 800 watts for the 8-Core chips but it would be better to have something solid. It shouldn't be hard for Apple to post an average range for a common set-up that we could use for a gauge.

My 3Ghz 8-core with 4GB RAM, ATI Radeon X1900 XT uses:

2-3 W turned off
5-6 W sleep mode
250-300 W starting
250 W Finder with Safari open
400-420 W 80-95% CPU usage (tested with Compressor)
490 W max. peak

Thank you very much.

Poppe's figures are about right for my 4 core 2.66 gHz as well, measured by looking at the draw meter on my UPS...

-Dan