New Gaming PC (Electric Bill)

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Nokturnl1

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Jun 29, 2013
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I currently live with 2 other people,we have a pre-paid/key meter which costs us £17 roughly a week.

All thats being used mainly is cooker,microwave (which takes quite a bit of juice) 2-3 tv's,an xbox 360,all normal stuff really.

When i used to have my laptop £23-25 was the rough weekly spend but at the time we had a 4th person living with us.

Now i am building a gaming rig and the guys here think the electric costs will double,is that true?

Intel core i5 3470
8gb Ram
XFX Radeon HD 2gb Double Dissipation
Silverstone 600w or XFX Pro 550w PSU

EDF Energy is our electric supplier (UK)

Any response will be appreciated.
 
Solution
jwk3


the 500w estimate is very generous IMO (in fairness he did say MAX average). this could be because we didn't know what GPU you had and had to calculate it on the power supply you chose. you'll likely be pulling 350W when gaming and around 100W when idle, so roughly 5 pence an hour for gaming use.
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makkem

makkem

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Jan 22, 2012
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HI
With that power supply the max average power usage would be about 500W per hour,so 1 KWH or 1 unit per 2 hours.
Have a look on your electricity bill and find out what you are being charged per unit and then you will be able to work out what it will cost to run.
Note the 500w/hour will only occur when gaming,when browsing web etc it will use less.
You will also need to add the cost to run the monitor.
 
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Nokturnl1

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OK thanks,i just jumped in bed lol will have to check tomorrow,thanks 4 the response mate
 
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jwk3

jwk3

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what specific graphics card have you got in mind? if you're being charged a lot with electricity it may be worth opting for the more modern power efficient graphics cards. You could also look at getting an 80+ silver or better PSU if budget allows as they will waste less electricity and draw less electricity from the socket.

Another thing to keep in mind is the power saving features on the motherboard. it may seem stupid but when I went into my BIOS and enabled all of the power saving features (which half of them were disabled by default) I reduced my average load from 120W to 80W, so it's well worth doing!

I got one of these power meters (link below) and it really helped cut down on electricity usage as you get a gauge on how much power the various devices are using, even on standby!
http://www.maplin.co.uk/plug-in-mains-power-and-energy-monitor-38343
 
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Nokturnl1

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I will be getting the xfx radeon hd 2gb dd edition or the vtx3d hd 2gb black edition graphics card,both are 7870 versions,im honestly lost when it comes to reading these electric monitor things,its jus numbers to me
 
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jwk3

jwk3

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Feb 29, 2012
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the 500w estimate is very generous IMO (in fairness he did say MAX average). this could be because we didn't know what GPU you had and had to calculate it on the power supply you chose. you'll likely be pulling 350W when gaming and around 100W when idle, so roughly 5 pence an hour for gaming use.
 
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