Power consumption of a pc?
 

Hi everyone, I was curious as to how much power a pc consumes. My dad and sister have recently gotten on my case about how the computer is on all the time and how it must be causing the electricity bill to go up.

I was always under the impression that as long as the monitor is off (which it is most of the time) the power consumption wasn't really all that high.

Can anyone give me a rough idea of how much energy my pc is taking up (maybe even compare it to another household appliance so I can get a rough comparison)?

Standard pc with nothing special coming out of it aside from an external hd.

If my pc really is hogging up the juice, then it'll stay on, but i'll pay for the 8-10 hours/day it's on but doing nothing but downloading.

Assuming a 400 W PSU, truly on for 24 hours a day 7 days a week for 52 weeks, you'd be at 2748.4 kWh. At 6.3 cents per kWh (this varies) your PC would cost $173.15 for a full year of usage. That's $3.30 a week or roughly 48 cents a day.

your really only looking at 150 watts of stuff there, not 400.

I think he was just pointing out the maximum amount of energy the computer could be using.

Indeed, whatever the wattage of your power supply, you can be sure that your computer will not be using any more power than that (not including the monitor, of course).

I must say, 150W sounds a little light on the energy, especially if you're running something stupidly hot, like a P4. 350W power supplies aren't as popular as they once were and there's got to be a reason for that...

if the computer's on, and you're away from it and the monitor is turned off, you're talking about a regular lightbulb.

If the computer's on, and you're using it with the monitor on, you're talking about 2 or 3 regular lightbulbs.

So if your sister is willing to start paying every time she turns on the light in her room, then maybe it's time for you to start paying for your computer ;)

But dry one load of clothes and you've used FAR more energy.

For reference, my server, an AMD XP 2700+, with 12 hard drives, 3, 120 mm fans, pulls just under 300 watts. However, I have a 600 watt PSU inside, because most of the wattage is from the 12 volt rails and no 300 watt PSU can support the amperage I draw on the 12 volt rail because of all the hard drives, and fans.

if your just downloading and using what 1% of the hard drives power. its basicly no power at all. all its really powering is the hard drive and thats just a few watts a hour. So heres what you do to be a real smart ass. go to the local hardware store and buy a box of those compact florecent energy saver lights that are as bright as 60 watt bulbs and only take 15 watts to run. replace the normal 60 watt bulbs around the house and tell them your saving money even with your computer on. then yell at them every time they leave one of the normal 60 watt bulbs on when they leave the room.

Thanks for the replies guys :)

I'll make sure to chip in my 48 cents a day ;)

My PC, AMD64 3700+, 3 harddrives, 3 80mm fans and 1 nvidia 6600GT videocard draws around 90 watts from the PSU (according to that PSU) when browsing. I imagine it'll be a bit higher when playing games.

yeah when playing games expect it to draw 300watts most of the time spikes to 350 or so. thats why the common power sorce is now 400watts or more better to have extra power you dont need then to not have it when you need it. When you need it and you dont have it thats when the computer crashes.