• Welcome to TechPowerUp Forums, Guest! Please check out our forum guidelines for info related to our community.

How would I figure out electricity usage?

JackAttack

New Member
Joined
Dec 14, 2009
Messages
118 (0.02/day)
Processor E8400 @ 3.0GHZ ~
A fellow on here brought up an interesting point in another thread. He said he is using too much electricity with his pc.
Got me to thinking...I wonder what my true cost per year is to run my machine 8 hours a day.

Has anyone done a study before on TPU?

Where would I start to figure out the cost?

I would have to know the watts drawn on every item in the pc I think, where would I get this actual information?
 
Joined
Dec 18, 2008
Messages
59 (0.01/day)
Location
Colorado
System Name The Beast
Processor Intel Core i7 920
Motherboard DFI UT X58 T3eH8
Cooling All Stock
Memory 6GB OCZ XMP 3x2GB
Video Card(s) Sapphire HD4870 X2 and PowerColor HD4870 X2
Storage 2xWD 1TB WD Black RAID1 | WD 400GB & 250GB
Display(s) SyncMaster 2343 | SyncMaster 920
Case Cosmos S
Power Supply Corsair HX1000
Software Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
Joined
Apr 2, 2009
Messages
3,505 (0.64/day)
I would have to know the watts drawn on every item in the pc I think, where would I get this actual information?

Kill-a-watt device. Google it. There are hundreds of'em out there for you to buy.

In general, I build a PC that would not exceed 200watt at peak, and that limits me to buy video card with only one PCI-E power connector which are HD 4850, HD 5770, or GTS 250).

Having run a server farm at home previously, I know the importance of power efficient PCs first hand. I learned it the hard way when I had to pay 500+ CAD for powerbill.
And because of that, when I see someone bragging about their PCs using hundreds of watt, it makes me shake my head.
 

W1zzard

Administrator
Staff member
Joined
May 14, 2004
Messages
26,956 (3.71/day)
Processor Ryzen 7 5700X
Memory 48 GB
Video Card(s) RTX 4080
Storage 2x HDD RAID 1, 3x M.2 NVMe
Display(s) 30" 2560x1600 + 19" 1280x1024
Software Windows 10 64-bit
in my opinion the most important number is idle power draw , because that's the state your pc will be in most of the day. most meters have a kwh recording mode, run your pc over a few days through the killawatt and it will show you the number of kwh that you consumed in that time which should give a more accurate view than the snapshot values using watt seconds
 
Joined
Nov 25, 2008
Messages
926 (0.17/day)
Location
Akron, OH
System Name Main Rig
Processor Athlon 5350
Motherboard AsRock mITX
Memory 4gb
Storage 120gb Kingston HyperX SSD
Display(s) Samsung Syncmaster 740N
Power Supply Corsair 430 watt
Hardware makers are just now starting to realize that their customers don't want their gear to be huge watt hogs when they are idling. You can build a basic i3 machine now that idles down below 40 watts. ATI's 5xxx series of video cards is also very good about their watts when idling.
 
Joined
Jul 28, 2008
Messages
1,018 (0.18/day)
Location
New York
System Name Filtration tower
Processor i9 7900@4.4ghz
Motherboard ASRock X299 Taichi
Cooling Air
Memory 64g 3200 quad channel
Video Card(s) ASUS GTX 1080Ti
Storage 500gb Nvme, 200gb SSD, 1700gb HDD
Display(s) 34" Acer Predator 3440x1440
Case Thermaltake v71
Power Supply EVGA supernova 850 T2
interesting topic, i got a killawatt myself, biggest worry is when quad core is overclocked to its MAXIMUM and is used 100% with the video card to crunch and fold,,, otherwise, if u r just a casual user and dont fold or crunch with ur pc u should not worry about bills
 
Joined
Aug 10, 2007
Messages
4,267 (0.70/day)
Location
Sanford, FL, USA
Processor Intel i5-6600
Motherboard ASRock H170M-ITX
Cooling Cooler Master Geminii S524
Memory G.Skill DDR4-2133 16GB (8GB x 2)
Video Card(s) Gigabyte R9-380X 4GB
Storage Samsung 950 EVO 250GB (mSATA)
Display(s) LG 29UM69G-B 2560x1080 IPS
Case Lian Li PC-Q25
Audio Device(s) Realtek ALC892
Power Supply Seasonic SS-460FL2
Mouse Logitech G700s
Keyboard Logitech G110
Software Windows 10 Pro
PC in the specs draws around 200w normally, 300w while gaming. It's never idle, so I don't know what it is.

Another box, a P4D 3.2Ghz (C1 stepping, 95w) draws 170w normally, about 200w while gaming (9500GT). While it's never idle as well, I measured it right after a fresh install - 115w.

The third box 'always on' box has a P4D 2.8Ghz (95w) and uses a IGP, so it's normal is a bit less than the other system.

Some months ago I EOL'd my two dual Prestonia Xeon boxes. Too much power used for performance given. Can't measure my Phenom boxes, boards are being RMA'd.

Electricity here is $0.10 per KWh. So $0.01 for every 100w, per hour. Systems, along with monitors, switch, router, modem, and other, I'm estimating about $1.68 per day (700w). Next time I can power down the two systems connected to my UPS, I'll plug in my meter and get a reading of everything connected.

in my opinion the most important number is idle power draw , because that's the state your pc will be in most of the day. most meters have a kwh recording mode, run your pc over a few days through the killawatt and it will show you the number of kwh that you consumed in that time which should give a more accurate view than the snapshot values using watt seconds

Heh, it's my least important number. If I had idling boxes, they would be configured to sleep for some single-digit draw numbers.
 

JayliN

New Member
Joined
Aug 29, 2009
Messages
71 (0.01/day)
Location
NYC
System Name Unnamed
Processor Intel Core i7 860 @ 2266 (.895vcore in bios, LLC off)
Motherboard MSI P55-GD65
Cooling Xigmatek S1283 /w Bolt Thru Kit and Antec Tri-Cool
Memory 2x2GB G.Skill Eco DDR3 @ 1.175v
Video Card(s) ATI 5850 /w Accelero S1
Storage WD 640GB, 2x WD GP 1TB
Display(s) Dell 2407WFP Rev. A04
Case Antec P182 /w Front Intake Antec Tri-Cool
Audio Device(s) Creative X-Fi XtremeMusic /w OPAmp Mod -> Audio Technica ATH-A900
Power Supply Antec NeoHE 500 Watt Modular
Software Windows 7 x64 Professional
My current rig idles at 67 watts and runs 8 threads of WCG at 105 watts. At a rate of $.18 KWh, thats $8.68/month if I left my computer idle or $13.6/month if I left it folding all day.

My LCD monitor draws 65 watts. I would say my electric costs to run the whole system is anywhere from $13-$20/month. I don't have actual numbers yet because this rig is recently built and I've been stress testing it a lot.
 
Top