power consumption

rlilewis

rlilewis

rlilewis

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Joined
6 Mar 2008
Posts
15
Hi all

This may be a silly question but I was thinking about the power consumption of my pc as electricity bills over here are supposed to rocket by 60% during the next year or something ridiculous.

Anyway I have a 600W PSU. My question is; does this mean the PC will always be using 600W or does it mean that it is capable of delivering 600W if it needs to?

So if all the components are only draining 300W will the PSU only put out 300W?
 
If the components need 300w, then the psu will draw 300w + inneficiencies from the mains. Therefore, if you want to save power, get an efficient PSU. Seeing as youve already bought a psu, the efficiency savings wouldnt be worthwhile getting a new PSU, but bear this in mind when getting a psu the next time. Look for a 80PLUS certified PSU. Some can reach upto 85% as well.

The best thing to do, is reduce the voltage on your cpu, and enable speedstep. Also, consider having overclocks only when you need them, i.e. gaming or video encoding. In addition, see if you can get a lower 2d clock/voltage on your graphics card via bios editing or rivatuner.

What is your PSU btw?
 
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oh god you had to ask that?

lmao its this:

*Don't link to competitors*

I got it to plug a gap after my pc died and my finances were in bad shape. Its very noisy and I'm planning on getting a decent one from ocuk to replace it.

I just ordered a power meter device which i can use to see how much my pc is using at both idle and full load, using cpu, gfx card and HD.

Thanks for the info, I always thought that buying a 600W PSU would mean I'd be using exactly 600W all the time its on.
 
Hi, if yourmachine is overclocked then it will use more power.

Consider clocking it down if you want to save power.


Also, get a PSU that is 80+% efficient such as the Enermax Modu 82+
 
Thanks for the info, I always thought that buying a 600W PSU would mean I'd be using exactly 600W all the time its on.
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That would be horribly inefficient. As suggested above just pick a decent, efficient PSU and it'll be ok all through the likely power ranges.
 
Get yourself a power monitor from B&Q. About £9-12 is all they cost. You plug it into the wall socket and then plug the pc, appliance (anything with a plug on it) to that and it will tell you how many watts it draws along with units of electricity used and lots more. It's a good investment and will allow you to see just how much everything costs to run.
 
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