How much power does a pc actully draw from the mains? Is it pretty much what the psu is rated at or what is actually being used by the components? For arguments sake an Athlon 2000+, stock cooler, 1x 512ddr, 1x hd, 1x optical, agp gfx card (64mb), 300w psu, pc is at normal load. I dont need an overly precise calculation, just a rough idea. I ask this because my dad is whining about last years electricity bill, it has doubled in a year. We both know it is mainly due to lazzyness, people leaving lights, tv's and computers on when they are not needed. But he is on about cutting down to one pc, I dont want anyone else using mine as I end up formating the family Pc every few months because of people screwing it up. This post is in here as its about computer hardware, its an odd question but I can't find a better place for it. Please dont whine... Hope somone can help... Thanks
just beacuse your powersupply is rated at say 450watts it doesn't draw that amount of power, it just takes what it needs, your system may only be using 350 say. for a small system like yours running at stock it may only use 250+ watts
If this guy is to be trusted, his systems aren't using more than 55-85 Watts once they spin up and have a normal load on them. http://w9if.net/iweb/cpupower/ It looks like his systems range from PIII's to P4 2.8G's http://w9if.net/iweb/ and his monitors are pulling 5 watts or less, again once they get warmed up. So - in theory it should be no more to run the system than it is to have a single 100watt bulb on. (is he thinking about taking bulbs out as well?) Now if you're running FAH or SETI obviously his measurements are right out.
Thats all I need to know really, just a rough ammount for an average system... Sorted! Nice one, thanks for the feedback guys
I'd guess about 130watts at idle and 180watts at load. Here's the power draw of some new high-end systems. http://www.gamepc.com/labs/view_content.asp?id=770ct479&page=4
Don't know how accurate these things are but I guess they give a very rough estimate: http://www.casemodgod.com/psu_calculator.htm http://www.3dcool.com/PWC.asp http://www.jscustompcs.com/power_supply/
Some good bookmarks coming out here guys, i think the 2nd one in zerocool's post is a little off the mark (472W for my system compared to 267W and 324W from the other two).
Well, those are interesting links, but I would have to say zerocool's are not relevent to the thread. They are great for deciding on a PSU because they are Full Load calculators, but that gives no indication for average use power consumption. It looks like 100-150watts is still a good average for normal use - which is basicallt idle. This is obviously without any power savings methods on - at S1 for example up to 90% of the CPU's power draw can be emliminated without a noticable wake-up routine. So, S1 should be an almost immediate consideration when left to idle - which should put the usage back closer to 100watts. S3 and S4 basically remove power usage which is when the system is in a noticeable "sleep" state. In those conditions it has to be below about 20watts and 5 wats respectively (in S3 only the RAM is left and its in a low power state and in S4, basically everything is turned off).
Have a look at this thread: http://forums.bit-tech.net/showthread.php?t=74971 As I posted in the thread, powering this: resulted in this measurements: So it costs between about £5 to £10 a week to run a computer 24/7 depending on load and monitor status (again, see other thread for more details)...
I ran across this while researching power supplies: http://www.pcpowerandcooling.com/maxpc/index_cases.htm
