I have a bequiet! Dark Power Pro 850w from 2013. £149 well spent, still runs fine.
Except the other day I noticed my electricity bill is twice the average for a terrace house.
And my bedroom is very warm, 20c in winter without a radiator on...always the warmest room in the house. What else is in my bedroom? Why, a Panasonic 46" plasma from 2008.
So I decided to check both on my multimeter. The last time I looked was many years ago, and the TV was around 230 watts, and the PC used to idle at 30-100w, 350w load. The most I had before was with 2 cards mining Bitcoin, pushed it to 500w. I have updated cpu and gpu since I got that PSU, now I have a 8086k not oc'd, and a 1080TI, not oc'd. So imagine my surprise when I saw my PC was drawing over 900watts, when not even gaming, just browsing! And the plasma TV 950watts, together 1.8kw, total cost about £68 a month. I thought it was a faulty multimeter, but the LCD tv downstairs is a mere 80w, and the PC in sleep mode is 1watt. Still shocked by it tbh.
I'm guessing the PSU has dropped to about 40% efficiency or less. Same for the caps in that Panny plasma. Gonna replace the plasma with my other LG LCD that only pulls 80w, as for that PSU, I don't need 850w to drive a 1080ti, so I'll downsize to a tier 3 600w, and replace that after 5 years.
tldr; check your power draw on old PSUs! you may be ******* away money, like I was.
Except the other day I noticed my electricity bill is twice the average for a terrace house.
And my bedroom is very warm, 20c in winter without a radiator on...always the warmest room in the house. What else is in my bedroom? Why, a Panasonic 46" plasma from 2008.
So I decided to check both on my multimeter. The last time I looked was many years ago, and the TV was around 230 watts, and the PC used to idle at 30-100w, 350w load. The most I had before was with 2 cards mining Bitcoin, pushed it to 500w. I have updated cpu and gpu since I got that PSU, now I have a 8086k not oc'd, and a 1080TI, not oc'd. So imagine my surprise when I saw my PC was drawing over 900watts, when not even gaming, just browsing! And the plasma TV 950watts, together 1.8kw, total cost about £68 a month. I thought it was a faulty multimeter, but the LCD tv downstairs is a mere 80w, and the PC in sleep mode is 1watt. Still shocked by it tbh.
I'm guessing the PSU has dropped to about 40% efficiency or less. Same for the caps in that Panny plasma. Gonna replace the plasma with my other LG LCD that only pulls 80w, as for that PSU, I don't need 850w to drive a 1080ti, so I'll downsize to a tier 3 600w, and replace that after 5 years.
tldr; check your power draw on old PSUs! you may be ******* away money, like I was.