Blogs How Much Does Your PC Cost To Run?

Been meaning to buy a power usage checking device for ages now, very curious to find out what my rig uses over a typical week, I do want to make an ultra low power htpc though for light tasks so it uses around the same as a lamp, would be so cool .

 

Your house mate Jacks off using it?

 

nice article Paul.. go dislodge the oven from the wall please, I want more wattage analysis. Itemise your electricity bill

 

We should all be grateful that we can access such energy for next to nothing, there no doubt will come a time, maybe within our lifetimes, that we will have to consider if we can afford a 5 hour gaming session on any given day.

 

Yeah, oven dishwasher and tumble drier next please!

 

Now that will be a day to look forward to )

 

I measured my avarage usage of PC+HDTV+speakers with a power monitor and it totaled <10€ per month. And that's with a pretty hefty rig, OC 2500K, 6950 CF and triple monitors + HDTV. I do try to save power though, since even idling with all monitors on can take 200-300W, while keeping only the rig powered drops it to 100W. The monitors only take around 15-20W each and the HDTV ~50W, but GPUs need higher voltages to keep them on so that adds a lot more power consumption.

 

my server/HTPC is connected to an HD LCD projector which pulls about 250watts from the wall. but my projector is on at most a half dozen hours a week, whereas my server is on 24/7. the amount of wattage something pulls isnt as important as how long it runs. i still pay more per month for my 30watt atom than i do for my projector.

 

So does my TV, which runs few hours a week too (F1 trainings, qualis, race; NHL ice hockey matches in the week on TV). But i talk in general - people buy LCD TV because they think it consumes less power, while in reality most times plasma TV's will eat less power. Sure, they have higher maximum power consumption, but on average they will be lower for majority of customers. And your and my use cases are not that typical - most homes have TV's running for hours per day.

 

this is why i run an I7 server at home cost is negligible compared to other costs and benefit to myself is way more than the cost potentially saved running a less power hungry machine

 

lol, i dont know about energy costs where you are, but here i would be paying over $20 more a month to run an i7 over a low power system. and thats just assuming its sitting there idle....loaded its even less efficient. thats not negligible to most people.

 

Rationalise it however you like, this planet is under serious stress thanks to us.
Every Wh you save helps a little bit, so please save what you can. Forget the politics, forget the still-ridiculously-cheap price of electricity - just don't waste stuff if you don't have to!

 

You are thinking by old rules.
Newer systems are more efficient in terms of chipsets, memory and processors themselves. A Core I3 idles down as far as an Atom, when the I3 does do work, it gets it done faster and returns to idle.

Similarly configured
An Atom 270 idles around 33 watts
A Core I3 will idle around 30 watts
An Atom D510 idles around 28 watts
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/d510mo-intel-atom,2616-11.html

 

If we forget the hard drives and other stuff like that, Core i5-2500K idles around 35W for whole system.

 

Didn't E.ON do something different - offering a free Powerdown plug (for sale here) to customers? It's a handy add-on for a PC system since it can be used to switch off peripherals (monitors, printers, powered USB hubs, speakers, etc) when the PC goes into sleep mode - switching them back on when the PC resumes.

I'd agree that most PC systems aren't going to be heavy electricity users unless folding or doing other 24/7 calculations. However it is worth double-checking power usage - one system I had continued using 200W power in sleep mode due to Logitech's SetPoint software having configured the mouse to be able to wake the computer from standby! A quick change in the Device Manager properties for the mouse fixed that, lowering sleep usage to just 10W, but without a power meter, there would have been no way of detecting this waste.

Another thing to watch out for are the "wall wart" power adapters which typically use 5-10W even when not powering anything. While one on its on is trivial, many posters here will probably have a dozen or more (USB hubs, speakers, chargers, etc) and that can make a significant difference to background usage. Moving non-essential adapters onto a switched powerstrip (and leaving that off unless needed) or using the Powerdown mentioned above is one good way of taming them.

 

im thinking by current rules. an i7 is not an i3 by any stretch of the imagination. depending on which i7 he is using it has at the very least 2 more cores and a discreet GPU to power. my modest little i5 system draws nearly 200 watts at idle with 3 hard disks and all energy saving features enabled. even if had a low power GPU installed i still doubt it would drop below 150 watts idle. an i7 will be pulling more then that.

my atom idles at 40 watts with 4 hard drives spinning and an inefficient brick PSU.

why would you forget the rest of the system? how many people do you know run their PCs for extended periods with no HDD?

my fiancees 2500k pulls just a shade over 100 watts from the wall at idle with 2 hard drives. shes only running a 5770, which is supposed to take under 20 watts at idle. so even using the on-die GPU its still pulling 80 watts.

there are more efficient systems out there then the atom these days, but a 2500k and i7 are not them

 

Because we are comparing the power consumption of board+cpu with igp ? 18W for Atom+ION vs i5-2500K+IGP.

And now look at power draw meter right now, 69W. For the system with i5-2500K, P8Z68-V PRO, 12GB RAM, X25-M G1 80GB, 6xWD20EARS & 4xWD20EARX at sleep, KNC1 DVB-C card, sound card (X-Fi), SATA port multiplier, 3 fans. Drop the 10 hard drives, that will take down another ~20W (10 drives, spin-down at 2W), then we are in ~50W range. Still a usable system, no ? But wait, that is 50W from the socket. That is about 40W if we remove the power supply inefficiently (i got a Seasonic X there) from the equation. And you must take in the account, that my board is pretty loaded compared to the typical Atom board, which means it "leaks" a watt there, a watt there (4 vs 8 SATA,0 vs 1 eSATA, 0 vs 2 Firewire etc etc).

Yes, of course Atom will have about a 10-15W advantage over i5-2500K+ cheap Z68 board, but does that difference really matters when thinking about the huge performance difference ?

And then there is the issue of what do you use it for. Sure, a HTPC is a nice thing, i have one too - it's my fileserver. Why have separate file server and HTPC, when you can have both in one PC ? Your HTPC uses maybe 25-30W when you put all the needed stuff on the board (memory, hard drive, power supply inefficiency). Now add on top of that the power consumption of your fileserver or NAS. If you have NAS, then it is again probably Atom based these days, which means another 20W at least. So now you are at 50W - and at similar power consumption as my all-in-one PC, with much higher performance.

Even my main rig with i7-2600K, 16GB RAM, Gene-Z, Gainward GTX570 Phantom, two SSD, bigNG, 3 fans uses 94W in idle from the socket. And Phantom ain't your power saving kind of graphics card in idle.

But you probably already know where does your higher power consumption comes from - it is the thing behind the @ sign in your sig. Yes, overclocking and changing core voltage of course increases power consumption. But i hope we are comparing stock performance and stock power consumption, right ? Right ?

And then there is the issue with the thing after C:\ in your location. No, it is not an anti-american remark . It is more about the issue with voltage in your electrical system. 110V means a little bit lower efficiency in power supplies, which again increases your numbers compared to us in Europe.

PS: My previous non-OC i5 750 + HD5870 system pulled ~110W in idle. Your OC again strikes back.

 

I don't want to know. Well I do want to know, but I don't want to obsess over it, and I would if I knew. Ignorance is bliss, right?

 

Sorry, but you have something wrong with your system or you are doing something on purpose that negates the savings you should be getting.

Oh look, you're overclocking.
Gee, I wonder why your power is so high, overclocking has no business in efficiency. Look into an overclocking wattage calculator, you will be amazed what happens.

Just so you know...
Your modest little I5 processor, at 100% is pulling AT LEAST 140 watts by itself, and that is if you don't up the voltage. A .1v increase adds 10 watts.
My entire system (Q9550, 8gigs, 6870, dual drives) idles at less than that, with no energy saving features. For 200 watts, I can include the dual 25in screens, surround system, high wattage usb hub, and even be watching a movie.

Your modest system, isn't modest by any means.

 

I wish more PSUs state their efficiency figures below 100watts load since that is where the PC usually spend most of its time drawing power at idle.