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How Much Power do PC's Really Use?

OverVolt

OverVolt

Lifer
Hey i was JW since the power bills been kinda steep latly. Any idea how much it cost to run a rig much 24/7 for a month?

Compare it with something. PSU is Antec TruBlue480w if it matters.
 
Correct me if I'm wrong but a 480w power supply doesn't pull all 480 watts. That's only its maximum. If the computer is only drawing 200 watts, then thats how much the power supply roughly draws. Am I right or am I wrong? I know a lightbulb doesn't pull a full 100 watts when you dim it down with a dim switch. I have a system that only requires 200 watts, but it has a 480 PSU. If the PSU isn't scalable then that means the PSU has to bleed off 280 watts of pure heat, and that doesn't seem right to me. I know CPU's don't work that way so why would a PSU?

Hey OverVolt, looking at your rig I can help but think that your comuter (just the box) pulls much more than three 100 watt light bulbs, maybe, maybe four, but thats a big maybe. That's not going to effect the powerbill that much. If anything I would say it's your heating/cooling bill.
 
Realistically, about 300W all up maximum. Probably closer to 150 - 200. Anyway, its trivial from a cost perspective.
 
Anyway to cut down on the power anyway? Makes me think what some of these ppl pay for power who run an old box 24/7 as a dhcp host, ftp or whatever.
 
Use low Power components that will do the tasks just as well as high power components.

Example: You can run a fairly zippy FTP on a low power P3 jst as well as on a high power Athlon or P4. The operations are mainly Disk / Memory I/O limited and not that CPU bound. DHCP or router PC can get by with even less (VIA Epia or something).

All your rigs you have listed are pretty power hungry, depends on what you need them for. A small household server would probably run OK on a Epia 1000, the OS could be run of a compact flash card, the data for FTP and Co could be on a HDD that powers down when not in use. That would be a very Energy efficient system.

The final load is NOT determined wht the PSU says, it is dependant on what is inside the machine. I talked to our power guys that design the electrical systems for the LAN partys we do (we are talking 1300 PCs or more). A year ago they calculated an average load per seat at 300W. Bear in mind that this is an average, machines ranged from the budget gamer PC that just barely do CS to the massive Athlon MP machines on server duty.
 
Originally posted by: wfbberzerker
also, take use of the hibernate/sleep functions instead of turning off your computer. that will save a lot of power.
Click to expand...

well actually just turning off your computer saves more power then sleep. 🙂
 
Not MUCH more. I think I've heard around 5W for a computer on standby. The extra time taken to turn the computer back on would probably destroy the power savings.
 
The big electricity burners are things like furnace fans, Heaters, Water Heater, Dryer, Washer (Uses elec + Water), Air conditioner, refrigerator/freezer.

Energy saving Toilets are a joke. The smaller they are the more they get stopped up. The more times they are flushed. The more water they waste.

A refridgerator is like 1,500 KWhr

A home uses maybe 4,000 KWhr on average.

An electric heater can be over 2500kwhr.
 
Energy saving Toilets are a joke. The smaller they are the more they get stopped up. The more times they are flushed. The more water they waste.
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But - usually - (ie when you're not in danger of blocking it 😉 ) they use less water than a conventional toilet. Thus, even though you *maybe* have to flush it a couple of times in a row a couple of times a day, it works out as less water used on average.

This is what I've been led to believe. If anyone has contradictory experiences, please share them (but not in too much detail 😛)

Cheers,

Andy
 
Originally posted by: Fencer128
Energy saving Toilets are a joke. The smaller they are the more they get stopped up. The more times they are flushed. The more water they waste.
Click to expand...

But - usually - (ie when you're not in danger of blocking it 😉 ) they use less water than a conventional toilet. Thus, even though you *maybe* have to flush it a couple of times in a row a couple of times a day, it works out as less water used on average.

This is what I've been led to believe. If anyone has contradictory experiences, please share them (but not in too much detail 😛)

Cheers,

Andy
Click to expand...


yea mine do get clogged more, but only once every couply months😛 no way that uses up more water. ussually i know when its going to be clogged, its when i put too much paper in, paper towel without waiting long enough, or am constipated🙂
 
First of all, PSU's aren't 100% efficient--I think they're about 75% efficient max. So a 100W PSU may use 125W to deliver 100W to your PC (or it may only be able to deliver 75W max--I'm not sure if a PSU ratings signifies what it can take or what it can deliver).

Secondly, it's fairly straightforward but time-consuming to estimate your electric bill. Just find the power draw of each item (CPU, memory, HD, video card, fans) and total them.

Off the top of my head: ~92W P4-3GHz, ~70W 9800P. Memory should also draw a lot of power, as will large monitors (~110W for a 19").

I'm sure the above linked Dan's Data article will tell you everything you need to know. If you need more, I'm sure I saw an article measuring power draw of different 3D cards in the same system at either ComputerBase.de or 3DCenter.de, but I can't find it now.

Ah, found it: [L]http://www.computerbase.de/article.php?id=227[/L] Use Google or Babelfish to translate if you'd like to know the details, but the graphs are self-explanatory.

 
I just turn my computer off entirely when its not in use. How long does it take to boot up? Not even 25 seconds for me. I think if you can wait an extra 30 seconds to use it, you'll save yourself a good amount of money monthly. Our server is on a Celeron 766 machine. It handles all of our server needs except our internal file server. The internal file server is an old Celeron 433mhz and so neither of them uses a lot of electricity. If you have any servers at home, make them low profile by using slower parts.
 
Some ball park figures based on my measurements of actual systems - this is power drawn from the mains and includes the power loss in the PSU. Typical PC PSUs are around 65-70% efficient.

Athlon 2.2 GHz - 3x HD, 2x CD/DVD, Radeon 9700 - 130W idle, 170W load, 10W standby (by standby I mean 'off' - i.e. 'shut down' on start menu not 'stand by')
Athlon 1GHz - 2xHD, 1xCD, GF2 GTS - 90W Idle, 120 W load
Celeron 766 - 1xHD, 1xCD, integrated - 40W idle, 50W load

Monitors: 15" CRT - 50W, 17" CRT 90W (4W in standby - 0W when switched off).

There may be temporary increases above the values quoted above, e.g. when accessing a CD - as the CD-ROM drive gets up to speed, power consumption can rise a further 20W for a couple of seconds.

For my new PCs (the top spec above) - this works out to a total of about 93 kWh/month if it were running 24/7 at idle. At the price I pay, this would be about £7/month. If I ran a background task (e.g. seti@home), my power bill would rise to approx £9/month.

I've not included monitor running costs above, as it is difficult to estimate the hours of use, and this varies from person to person.
 
Excellent Mark! These are actual empirical figures? There's been a lot of speculation here on AT but these are the first real measurements I've seen. You should start a new thread just with your information.
 
Originally posted by: AgaBooga
I just turn my computer off entirely when its not in use. How long does it take to boot up? Not even 25 seconds for me. I think if you can wait an extra 30 seconds to use it, you'll save yourself a good amount of money monthly. Our server is on a Celeron 766 machine. It handles all of our server needs except our internal file server. The internal file server is an old Celeron 433mhz and so neither of them uses a lot of electricity. If you have any servers at home, make them low profile by using slower parts.
Click to expand...

yup, even if your pc only uses 10 watts on standby, assuming your pc does go into full standby, most won't or can't because some usb component won't let it go into full standby. u gotta check em off manually, most people wouldn't know that eh? say you sleep 8 hours, thats power wasted however youlook at it. and well pc's even with xp benifit from reboots🙂 xp boots so fast its not an issue.
 
Yup, those are empirical figures from systems that I own.

I was so fed up with BS figures being quoted on BBSs that I decided the only way to find out for sure was to measure it myself. So I bought a cheap power-meter and these are the results I got.

I was also surprised at the standby power consumption of items. The items on my computer desk (modem, stereo, USB digital radio, printer, etc.) have a standby consumption of over 60W - that's before you actually turn any of them on.

I was also very impressed by nokia's chargers. Conventional PSU designs use a transformer. However, nokias use a SMPS, which is cleverly gated by the output. If there is no load on the output, a special shutdown circuit puts the supply into an ultra-low power sleep mode. Without a phone attached, the charger's power consumption is not measurable with my equipment. This is in stark contrast to the PSUs used by my modem, etc. On one 5W supply standby power is about 6W, rising to about 13W at full load!
 
Originally posted by: AgaBooga
I just turn my computer off entirely when its not in use. How long does it take to boot up? Not even 25 seconds for me. I think if you can wait an extra 30 seconds to use it, you'll save yourself a good amount of money monthly. Our server is on a Celeron 766 machine. It handles all of our server needs except our internal file server. The internal file server is an old Celeron 433mhz and so neither of them uses a lot of electricity. If you have any servers at home, make them low profile by using slower parts.
Click to expand...
Well i've been running F@H on three comps (been turning off monitors/ my 400w speakers 😛) so it shouldn't use that much power. But turning them off isn't really an option (trying to take 1st place of my team!!!)Our power bill was around $160 WITHOUT AC. It's gunna be a killer next time it comes around. One thing i think uses alotta power is our well water since it has to pump 3gallons and presurize it at like 25psi every flush.

EDIT: thanks for those figures Mark R


 
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