PC Electricity Consumption

Well if you're at FULL load for the entire time (which you won't be) and we take electric costs as 15p/kwh (from my bill) it'd be -

0.75kw x 15p = 11.25p/h
11.25p x 12hrs = £1.35/day
£1.35 x 365 = £492.75/year

Roughly running your sig through a power calculator it comes out at 382w @ 60% (probably a good average for a days gaming & general usage) - this'd bring your total to ~£250/year (68p/day)
 
kmufc77 said:
Hi all ive had a quick look but cant find an any info really

Im sure someone here knows how much PCs use in electric = £

Im with British Gas if that matters?

I use my PC for upto 12 hrs a day 7 days as week

My PSU is http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=CA-038-CS&groupid=701&catid=123&subcat=1084

My rig is in my sig.

Im hopless when it comes to figures :)

Thanks in advance
Click to expand...


My first time doing this tbh but I calculated that your system pulls 675w at 100% full load (I made sure it was over rather than under)

I then calculated usage cost on the basis that it was underload for 12 hrs a day 7 days a week works out to:

£24.30 per month
£291.60 per year

On the basis of an average cost of 10p per kWh
 
Power consumption will greatly depend on use.

Idle I suspect for your system will be around 100 W from the wall.
Mine in comparasion is 70 W.

Full gaming I guess you will be in the 300 W - 400 W bracket.

You could get something like this to see what you are using.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-003-EN

Use this calculator to work out your costs

http://www.ukpower.co.uk/tools/running_costs_electricity/

For me running 70 W 24/7 at 10p per kwh costs £61.32 per year.
Then I have add on extra for gamming/processing + monitors/router/speakers.
 
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Cyanide said:
Well if you're at FULL load for the entire time (which you won't be) and we take electric costs as 15p/kwh (from my bill) it'd be -

0.75kw x 15p = 11.25p/h
11.25p x 12hrs = £1.35/day
£1.35 x 365 = £492.75/year

Roughly running your sig through a power calculator it comes out at 382w @ 60% (probably a good average for a days gaming & general usage) - this'd bring your total to ~£250/year (68p/day)
Click to expand...

Thanks for the info!

Very educational :)

OP you can also calculate usage of your monitors :)
 
Just to give you a idea of actual consumption my old pc with i7 920 @ 4ghz, several hard drives and custom water and a 580 @ stock pulled 500w from the mains with Fur Mark and prime running.
 
Thanks for reply guys.

Im only asking as im using between £2.00-£2.50 a day in electric (Have a pre-payed meter so its easy to work out my daily usage,still the same tarrif as a DD account!)

So my PC has to be the main culprit i would have thought,though i must admit i was expecting something like £1 a day?

So all in all,is it reasonable to think my PC uses 70p to £1 per day @ 12hrs a day?

I have Dell U2410 screen as well, im i right in thinking these are very power hungry screens?

Thanks so far for all the help, its very appreciated
 
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well, i have used 60KWh in 3 weeks, that is average usage, turning off the machine at night, some BF3 play, etc etc

so that means that (52/3)(60)= 1040KWh per year

so at 15p/KWh, that means it is £156/year :)
 
RJC said:
Just to give you a idea of actual consumption my old pc with i7 920 @ 4ghz, several hard drives and custom water and a 580 @ stock pulled 500w from the mains with Fur Mark and prime running.
Click to expand...

Christ - that's low. So these calculator sites are overestimating the wattage to cover themselves in a way? 500w under load that's hilarious. I better start buying multiple GPUs.....
 
[WU-TANG]GZA;21196822 said:
Christ - that's low. So these calculator sites are overestimating the wattage to cover themselves in a way? 500w under load that's hilarious. I better start buying multiple GPUs.....
Click to expand...

Yeah I'm fairly sure all of those calculators are terrible. Well, they give you a rough estimate but will almost always be overestimating.
 
Sasahara said:
Power consumption will greatly depend on use.

Idle I suspect for your system will be around 100 W from the wall.
Mine in comparasion is 70 W.

Full gaming I guess you will be in the 300 W - 400 W bracket.

You could get something like this to see what you are using.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=NW-003-EN

Use this calculator to work out your costs

http://www.ukpower.co.uk/tools/running_costs_electricity/

For me running 70 W 24/7 at 10p per kwh costs £61.32 per year.
Then I have add on extra for gamming/processing + monitors/router/speakers.
Click to expand...

Thanks ive just ordered one of those
 
beejjacobs said:
Yeah I'm fairly sure all of those calculators are terrible. Well, they give you a rough estimate but will almost always be overestimating.
Click to expand...

+1

yeah, those calculators always overcompensate to avoid legal issues if people follow their recommendation and it blows their stuff or whatever :)
 
[WU-TANG]GZA;21196822 said:
Christ - that's low. So these calculator sites are overestimating the wattage to cover themselves in a way? 500w under load that's hilarious. I better start buying multiple GPUs.....
Click to expand...

I take them with a pinch of salt, don't forget some show recommended PSU wattage rather than actual power draw of the machine.
 
RJC said:
I take them with a pinch of salt, don't forget some show recommended PSU wattage rather than actual power draw of the machine.
Click to expand...

I always knew they overestimated, just didn't know by that much!

My rig which sounds pretty similar to your under full 100% load came out to 780w ish (I know the 950w is overkill but it's something I wanted overkill tbh:P) and in reality it's probably going to pull circa 500w like yours did. That's over 50% give or take. Dayuuum...a bucket of salt methinks!
 
Cyanide said:
Well if you're at FULL load for the entire time (which you won't be) and we take electric costs as 15p/kwh (from my bill) it'd be -
<snip>
Click to expand...

Full load doesn't = max psu output, and if it does, then it wouldn't be 750w, it'd be 937w assuming 80% efficiency.


I'd put that system full load being 450w max which would draw 517w at 87% efficiency, plus the monitor power which depends on the size and if it uses ccfl's but as an average add 70w

0.520 x 15 = 7.8p per hour

So for a day that would use £1.87 in electric assuming your meter is 15p/kwh

Being on British Gas means nothing in terms of price as there's still 100's of different tariffs you could be on with varying prices.

AFAIK prepaid meters are usually more expensive.


Also those PSU calculators are always OTT. Now it could be because they're just crap, or that they overestimate on behalf of the user to allow additional items to be added in at a later date. If that is the case well they don't tell the user anything about that and the user usually goes and buys a PSU a bit greater than what was calculated making it even more OTT for their system.
 
moogle said:
Full load doesn't = max psu output, and if it does, then it wouldn't be 750w, it'd be 937w assuming 80% efficiency.


I'd put that system full load being 450w max which would draw 517w at 87% efficiency, plus the monitor power which depends on the size and if it uses ccfl's but as an average add 70w

0.520 x 15 = 7.8p per hour

So for a day that would use £1.87 in electric assuming your meter is 15p/kwh

Being on British Gas means nothing in terms of price as there's still 100's of different tariffs you could be on with varying prices.

AFAIK prepaid meters are usually more expensive.


Also those PSU calculators are always OTT. Now it could be because they're just crap, or that they overestimate on behalf of the user to allow additional items to be added in at a later date. If that is the case well they don't tell the user anything about that and the user usually goes and buys a PSU a bit greater than what was calculated making it even more OTT for their system.
Click to expand...

Not with BG i made sure of that,i can assure you the pre-paid meters with electric are the same tariff i was on before when i was paying a DD.

I was told this countless times when i changed over.
BG are the only supplier that do this as far as im aware,other suppliers charge more for a pre-paid meter for electric,BG do not.
 
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Not that it will make much difference but don't power companies levy higher charges on pre-payed meters? (cost of maintenance etc...)
 
kmufc77 said:
Not with BG i made sure of that,i can assure you the pre-paid meters with electric are the same tariff i was on before when i was paying a DD.

I was told this countless times when i changed over.
BG are the only supplier that do this as far as im aware,other suppliers charge more for a pre-paid meter for electric,BG do not.
Click to expand...

Hmm, well whats the rate then? :P

It says it on the meter as well so you can make sure. I remember when we had a meter I was always checking as some days it'd jump quite a lot.
 
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