EST Power usage - Cost of running.

mast3r

mast3r

mast3r

Soldato
Joined
28 Jan 2007
Posts
2,558
Location
Wilmslow, Cheshire
Chaps, just our of pure Curiosity. Would anyone be able to tell me a rough idea on how much my rig/s are to run based on

5 Hrs per day
12 Hrs Per Day

BeQuiet 1200W PSU
QX6700
Asus Striker Extreme
8gb RAM
2x 8800GTX Ultras
Crtv Xfi
4x HDD (3 1.5tb Greens)
1x 24" Dell screen




Antec Earthwatts 600w PSU
Asus £100 board (cant remember what it is)
AM2 Phenom 955
8gb RAM
Asus Xonar
N Class WiFi card PCI.e
2HDD (1tb green)
Silent 9500GT
Bluray Drive
Z5500
42" Panny Viera (2009 Rev)


Many thanks
 
Worst case, and very rough numbers (10p/KWhr)...

1200W PSU = 12p/hour

600W PSU = 6p/hour

It's probably actually less than half the above.

If you really care then use one of the online calculators to get a reasonable wattage figure and work from there. Otherwise buy a plug in power comsumption monitor and see what it tells you.
 
You really need to figure out how much of the actual power your rig will use. If it's sitting idle it will use a lot less.

I did a bit of digging about when the 5850's came out to justify it to myself based on the fact when idle and running 24 hours a day it would pay for itself in a year or so! When compared against the 4890 (i think).

You can buy a power monitor which plugs into the wall and tells you how much power you are using. (****** sell them).
 
To give you a idea my i7 system pulls 430w from the mains.

4ghz, 6gb ram, crossfire 5850 & 3 hd's.
 
I'd call it approx:
4p/hour if you only really run it when you're using it
3-4p/hour if you leave it idle for some of the time, but use it a fair amount of the time
2-3p/hour if you're running it 24/7 (ie idle 12+ hours a day)

The more you use it the cheaper it will average out per hour (since it's spending a higher percentage of time idle) but obviously you'll be paying for more hours.

24/7 usage would be about 50p/day = £180/year.
4 hours a day heavy usage = £60/year
18 hours a day leaving it idle for 6 or so and using it for 12ish would be maybe £120/year, which I'd approximate as my own usage.
 
Get yourself a plug in power monitor from B&Q or that large electrical store and see what your rig actually pulls at the wall. They cost around a tenner and are a handy piece of kit to have.
 
The first system with dual 8800GTX's probably uses quite a lot of power when gaming.. 8800's are pretty power hungry cards.

The second system probably uses less than 150W most of the time.
 
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