New system build, electricity bill goes up 30%

[vexun11]

I am living with 2 friends, our power bill has gone up like 30% now up to like 350$ a month, we do live in a big house however its just 3 people here, I have my i7 system that I keep running 18 hours a day, how much a month, rounded or a close guess would you say my computer running would cost? I have my specs in my signature, just an i7 930 @ 4ghz 6gb ddr3 1600 and a 5830. Would it be like 30-40$ a month that my system is costing? or 20$ a month? I am just curious because I doubt that my system is using 100$ + a month, I don't want to be responsible for that extra power being used.

Also what would the difference per month be if a system is idle 24/7 or if the system is prime 95 24/7 with an average 500 watt load?

 

[hunter315]

idle power i would say you are probably pull ~100W, full load, about 500W. Whats the going rate for power in your area? In my rate is about 10 cent/KWh now so im going to do my math off of that.

If your system is idle for 18 hours a day, 30 days a month, and off for the other 6 hours, you use about 54 KWh, or about $5.40. If your system is running full load pulling 500 watts, then you will use 5 times as much, about 270KWh or $27.00.

Assuming your are in the northern hemisphere, its now summer so i find it much more likely that you guys are using an AC unit which would increase your power bill far more significantly, an AC unit can pull ~1kW or more which adds up to far more than your i7 very quickly, your refrigerator also has to run more often to keep its contents cool so that will add some more on.

In my area, if you increased a power bill by $100, you would have had to use 1MW which is an obscenely high amount of power. There is also the chance that they did an estimate the last couple months and were a bit low the last few months and actually read your meter this time around.

 

[vexun11]

You really think I only pull 100 watt idle?? for real? I thought atleast id be at 350. I use the c1e power saving tools, I idle at 42 watts and at load it gets up to almost 150.

So you think my system would stay under around like 10$ a month? I just need to have some kind of an idea about how much my system costs so I don't stress out leaving it on all the time.

I live in Sandy Utah and we are in almost 100º weather now so yea the AC has to be the main part of all that. It sucks because to cool my room I have to use the AC for 3 other rooms that are not used. I close all the vents which seems to help.

I have a corsair 650Watt PSU. I was thinking I would need to upgrade to get a second radeon 5830 but if im at around 500W under load do you think my psu would support 5830 / 5850 crossfire?

 

[damasvara]

30% is nothing compared to my 200% (REALLY!) electrical bill charge rise. The funny thing is, my rig is a "Green" one (check out my config)

The problem is the electrical company in my country, they're dirtier than a school toilet!!! I don't know about you though. Why don't you count it by yourself? Using the method the electrical company use. In my country, the meter checker man (I think he's the main suspect here!) comes every once in a month. If it's the same as your country, just check the power meter together.

 

[hunter315]

If you have multiple AC units running that is your most likely culprit. Your charge per kWh is likely higher based on your region, im up in the northeast and we seem to have relatively cheap power compared to some regions.

 

[jaguarskx]

Use a Kill-A-Watt to determine how much power your electrical devices are consuming. Higher priced models have more functions.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=kill-a-watt

Since it is summer have you been using the AC more than normal?

idle power i would say you are probably pull ~100W, full load, about 500W. Whats the going rate for power in your area? In my rate is about 10 cent/KWh now so im going to do my math off of that.

10 cents/KWh???

Damn, I wish I was paying that.

 

[vexun11]

yea ac running 24/7, especially with my room because my room is 1 level above the garage and the garage is huge and very very warm, so the heat rises, my room is usually 6-10ºC warmer but even last month using this amount of air conditioning the bill wasn't this high. How much money on average would an oc to 4ghz increase the payment? Also I had to run prime 95 for 10-12 hours a few weeks ago.

 

[Petey1013]

Your computer is a pretty insignificant addition to your powerbill. like probably not even 3-5%

Definitely your AC, or someone tapping into your power to grow pot.

 

[vexun11]

LOL

 

[vexun11]

Cool, thanks for everyone's input!

 

[loneninja]

Use a Kill-A-Watt to determine how much power your electrical devices are consuming. Higher priced models have more functions.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Order=BESTMATCH&Description=kill-a-watt

Since it is summer have you been using the AC more than normal?




10 cents/KWh???

Damn, I wish I was paying that.

I'm not sure the exact rate right now as I'm at my parents again, but couple years ago when I had an apartment I was only paying around 9 cent/KWh, $40 electric bills are nice even with a room mate. lol

 

[13thmonkey]

i'm using a Q9550 and a gtx 470, idle is 150W and peak is 300W at the wall pc only, no monitors.

so at 20hrs a day thats 6000Whrs, i.e. 6 units of electric, in the uk we are at 10p a unit? so thats 60p per day, 30 days a month = £18.00? so it could be as high as you are seeing but i doubt that is all.

 

[vexun11]

wow, petey was saying like 3-5% a day, I was excited to hear that, now im thinkin it might be a lot more. I do use power saving mode so when I am afk my system is using 40-45 watts Do you think the power saving utilities amd and intel use work very well? Which one saved more electricity, cool n quiet or intel c1e

 

[ko888]

If I were to run my 30" monitor and PC, which consumes 390 Watts total, for 18 hours a day and 31 days a month, with a cost per kiloWatt hour of 6.57 cents where I live, it would cost me no more than $14.30 per month.

 

[Emerald]

my computers are running 24/7. I decided to retire one of them which had a 550W PSU and my bill dropped by about $9.

 

[vexun11]

Hmm.. Well I do have 2 22' lcd's that are on for most of the time. A ceiling fan, and another fan I use on my desk. an external hard drive. logitech 5.1 speakers. (Do they use much electricity if I leave them on 24/7? The light is always on, I staretd turning them off.

Man eliminate electricity and the human race would go back to the stone ages.

 

[vexun11]

The computer that you decided to retire, what are the system specs?

 

[hunter315]

The LCDs probably pull 20W each, maybe less, ceiling fan, probably 30W, small desk fan probably 20W, external HDD about 10W, the speakers wont pull anything if you arent using them, their power usage will vary depending on the volume you are using them at, but probably less than 150W at max, the light is probably a 60W bulb, so about 300W for all of those, still nothing compared to your average AC unit.

 

[ko888]

On my Samsung 305T Plus 30" LCD monitor the standby power consumption is only two watts compared to 130 Watts when in use.