What to do...

Soldato
Joined
13 Jun 2009
Posts
4,230
Location
My own head
I currently own 2 x 4890s clocked at 900/4400.

The power bill in the house came in at £500 per quarter so I feel fairly liable for most of that given my new build.

I was thinking about buying a single 5870 to cut some power usage, as the majority of the time my PC is idle doig word processing etc.

Only quarrel I'm having is that WHEN I do game I want to be able to play things like ARMA 2 and 1920x1200 / All very high with 3.5k Draw distance (AA off) with 50/60FPS.

Is this possible with a single 5870?
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
13 Jun 2009
Posts
4,230
Location
My own head
Any news on 5890 release date? I'd rather have one of them... Only cause if I waited until their release and it was next year my cards wouldn't fetch anywhere near £110-120 each!
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
13 Jun 2009
Posts
4,230
Location
My own head
5870x2 is probably going to come out first. Don't even think 5890 is planned yet. Either wouldn't do anything towards solving your power problem.

I'm not MAJORLY crying about the power issue, id say it was higher this quarter because I was home everyday with computer on from 9am till 4/5am.

I'm back at Uni now 8am til about 12am so I imagine power usage will drop considerably.

Heat is a good factor through, although with winter coming up the 4890s would be nice to subsidize my radiator :p
 
Associate
Joined
9 Dec 2006
Posts
1,321
I meant to answer this yesterday.

£500 per quarter
15p per Kilowatt Hour
Means 500/(0.15) KwH = 3,333 KwH charged

There are 90 days in a quarter
Your daily usage is 3333/90 KwH per day
Which is 37 KwH per day

Lets be silly and say your computer is drawing a continuous 800 watts, or 0.8 KwH per hour

If you were responsible for ALL the electricic bill...
Your computer would have to be on for 37/(0.8) hours
which is 46.25 hours per day.

Given that your computer is NOT drawing 0.8 watts, and given that your computer is unlikely to be in use 46 hours per day I think you can rest assured that your computer is not the main culprit for the majority of the high electric bill :)

Of course I don't know what monitor/sound system you are using.

For about £10 you can get a little energy consumpton meter that fits between a mains wall socket and the plug of an extension lead which drives all your kit. It will tell you exactly how much energy you are using. The better ones allow you to enter the cost per KwH of electricity and give an continuous reading of energy used and cost of that energy.
 
Last edited:
Soldato
Joined
19 Oct 2002
Posts
6,432
Location
Torbay, Devon, UK
Sorry I dont know all the maths. But now way is your PC making your bill that high.

I would get one of the units that show your power usage. (Owl Wireless Energy Monitor) is good.

then see how much extra power your PC uses when its on.

There must be something else using a lot of power.

Have you even checked to see if you can get your power cheaper else where.
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
13 Jun 2009
Posts
4,230
Location
My own head
When the hell did I say my PC was costing £500 a quarter to run? I said the TOTAL bill came in at that. Which is way above the average household.

The previous quarter (before I got PC) was like £300/350. And the PC has been on pretty much 19 hours a day since June :p

That is why I think it's contributing a lot :D

Oh and I'm using a 24" Monitor (95w) / 19" monitor and Logitech 2.1 system. On top of that I have 4 hard drives.
 
Last edited:
Soldato
OP
Joined
13 Jun 2009
Posts
4,230
Location
My own head
Hmm. Well in a family of four... with £350 to £500 bill. A £150 increase is a a majority. Given that it is possibly coming from 1 device from 1 person.

I can't see any other reasons for the increase. It's been summer, no heating on etc bill was meant to go down not up. And I have been the only one home from 8am - 5pm most days.

As for changing power companies... there isn't much point. There is about £30 difference from one end to the other. I find it amusing that ofgen gave up their regulation rights years ago with the view that energy companies would produce their own competition.
 
Soldato
OP
Joined
13 Jun 2009
Posts
4,230
Location
My own head
Why not generate your own energy? Either for the PC or for everything but. 300W Solar Panel and a 300W Wind Turbine shouldn't be to expensive. Although an 800W Solar Panel would be in the region of £2500...

I'm a 3rd year Uni student... I don't think I could spend 2.5k on solar panels :rolleyes: might as well just solar panel the roof if I was going that route and cut the entire house bill (without me paying for it).
 
Associate
Joined
23 Mar 2009
Posts
2,014
Location
Peterborough
rexehuk it sounds like you want it to be your pc using all this power and not something else. Or maybe you're using this as an excuse to justify buying a 5870 to play with ;).

Like most others here i can't believe your pc has made that big of an impact on your electricity bill.

You said you was home everyday so this would probably imply the computer wasn't the only electrical appliance in the house you used. If you're really fussed about power turn things off when you're not using them and turn them off at the plug.

However i still think this is an excuse to justify getting a new toy.
 
Back
Top Bottom