Electrical Costs: For an Average User
We calculated the yearly electrical costs for an average user. Our user leaves the computer on for 9 hours a day and runs the CPU at 100% for 4 hours a day. We used these values to create our average user profile.
If the computer is equipped with the most energy efficient Sempron, the 64 3000+, the PC system’s energy costs (excluding monitor) are about $82 (53.21 Euros) per year. The smallest Dual-Core BE processor only costs $3.05 (1.98 Euros) more per year.
At $124.50 (80.83 Euros), the Quad-Core Phenom system is better than the Athlon 64 X2 6400+. The two times higher energy consumption of the Phenom during standby is not noticeable for the average user when compared to the fastest Dual-Core Athlon: there is only about $6.32 (4.10 Euros) more in electrical costs over the year. It’s obvious that the Phenom processor has the highest energy costs out of all of the AMD desktop processors.