Blogs How Much Does Your PC Cost To Run?

another factor to consider is that PC components are an investment. even if you only "break even" with the money saved on your power bill after buying the more energy efficient components, you can later sell those components for a profit. you cant sell your used electricity.....

 

My rig uses 200watts at full load, factoring in 80% efficiency in the PSU, this takes me to around 250watts drawn from the wall. with our power at 20c/kwhr, it costs 5c per hour to run at full load. $1.20 per day, $36 per month IF i run it at full load 24/7 (Folding). I sleep it at night and for the 16 hours a day its on it probably averages 30% load. So I'm more than likely closer to $0.50 per day of use. Which is paid by my board

 

It's going to depend on what all you have that you are measuring. My dual 25in screens use 40-50 watts on their own. Then you have a powered usb hub and speakers to add to the mix. All told my system idles around 160, but while gaming my power goes up almost 130 watts due to the graphics card. This is based on my UPS though, which isn't perfect but does give a from the wall number and while not perfect, is consistent with the numbers.

Hard drives and monitors use the most while idle. Most drives will pull 15-25 watts while while being used and about half that at idle. Put 10 drives in and you just used a lot of power.

On the other hand, my headless, micro server idles at about 25 watts.

200 watts is easy to hit depending on video card, monitors and hard drives.

 

It's good that the next generation of kit has halved the power usage again - a Llano desktop would come down to 40-55W depending on the efficiency of a 400W PSU, rather than the one used in issue 97's tests.

The flat telly I want, once calibrated, that's 55-60W, over 100W less than the old one and for that cost saving I'd just live with the pants speakers or use the old PC ones that barely add 10W or so. Just have to flip a coin about which upgrade comes first, since I could plug the current PC into the TV, I think it'll be the screen. No need for a second monitor then.