PC Electricity Consumption?

[worldpease]

how many watts does a PC use?
for example by hour,...
how many watts does it use by hour, when I leave it on by night?
(considering that is just the CPU unit, not the monitos).

[uNz[i]]

Here is a list of PC parts with how many watts each part uses.

Edit: It's a bit of an old list though... but it'll still give you a general idea.

[lynx]

Nice list.

Remember that most of those are PEAK power consumption figures, generally the use will be a fraction of what is quoted there.

[worldpease]

Here at home,
they blame the high bill rates on me, they say Im the one with the computer, and that I leave it all night... but I don't think so, the CPU can't take more energy than the freaking lights that no one turns off, the washing machine that they forget to turn off, or the 25" to 27" TVs that are on at least 8hrs a day.
I guss I'll just have to pay the bill and see if they leave me alone for once.

[tesco]

lets jsut say my computer was to work at full power consumption for 24hours a day, 7days a week for 1 month.
450watts(psu)+35watts(monitor)=485watts
485/1000=.485kw
at 5cents/kw electricity that would be:
.485*5=2.4cents/hour
2.4cents*24hours=57.6cents per day
57.6cents*30days=1728cents (17.28dollars)

so to leave teh computer on 24/7 it would cost ~17dollars per month!

now i most likely did something wrong here but oh well.

[Virtualbody1234]

Ross.

The 450 watts rating of a power supply is the total output. Not it's consumption.

[tesco]

Ross.

The 450 watts rating of a power supply is the total output. Not it's consumption.

oh.
so what does it consume then?

edit: did i get the other part though? like would the 450watts be watts used in each hour or something else?

[lynx]

The PSU is probably about 80% efficient, so the total consumption should be about 600W not 485W. Other than that your calculations are correct, you just need to increase the figure by about 25%, making the total (based on 5c/KWh) about $21.50 per month.

Of course, you wouldn't actually run so close to the PSU's maximum capabilities and in any case you could never run every component at full power 24/7. So you could probably make a guess at the actual consumption being about a quarter of that, or about $5.50 per month.

[Virtualbody1234]

Consumption is what is drawn from the wall outlet. Not the output of a power supply.

I did a small test. I hooked up an Amprobe similar to this:



With my PC running at idle it shows a draw of 1/3 of an amp.
Under load (Folding@home) it shows a draw of 1/2 of an amp.

And I'm being generous. It shows actually less than these figures.

120 volt line @ 1/2 an amp = 60 Watts.

So in fact my PC is running under full load and the consumption is less than 60 watts (not including monitor).


So... 60w x 24h x 30d = 43200wh

43200wh / 1000 = 43.2 kwh

@ 5¢ per kwh that's:

$2.16 per month or $25.92 per year.

[worldpease]

Damn, you guys are good.
I don't think it makes diference, they just won't "see".