Gaming pc electricity usage

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suziem50
suziem50 Posts: 3 Newbie
in Gaming MoneySaving
Hi, I'm wondering how much in monetary terms it costs to run my son's gaming pc for 8 hours a day? It's a Dell Aurora R5 with 1 monitor and no added speakers. We are currently on holiday and have it with us (don't ask!). Would like to work out how much money to leave the owner after our 3 week stay.
Thanks in advance.
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  • DCFC79
    DCFC79 Posts: 40,598 Forumite
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    suziem50 wrote: »
    Hi, I'm wondering how much in monetary terms it costs to run my son's gaming pc for 8 hours a day? It's a Dell Aurora R5 with 1 monitor and no added speakers. We are currently on holiday and have it with us (don't ask!). Would like to work out how much money to leave the owner after our 3 week stay.
    Thanks in advance.

    I know you said not to ask but im intrigued.

    You allowed your son to bring his pc with you on holiday ?
  • suziem50
    suziem50 Posts: 3 Newbie
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    Can't guarantee weather.
  • almillar
    almillar Posts: 8,621 Forumite
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    Have a look at the back of the computer for a label, there should be information on it, including, say 500W. To keep it simple, assume it uses all of that (it won't, that's the max it can use). So 500w for 8 hours is 4 Kilo Watt Hours. 15p per KWh would be a fair price to pay for electric, so 60p per day.
    You would need to find a similar label on the monitor (they ARE there) to work out the electric for that.
    If it was a DIY gaming PC, there would be a power supply with its own label, and you'd find it by taking off the side of the computer.
  • Nilrem
    Nilrem Posts: 2,565 Forumite
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    The PSU wattage is the maximum it'll use (same with that on the monitor/tv*), I have a 600watt or so PSU in my machine alongside a hefty videocard and bunch of drives, however at idle the machine uses about 100watts for normal browsing/video viewing, and only about 200-250 watts when playing games.
    Those are measured using a plug in power meter.


    *Things like how bright you have a TV set to affect it.
  • Johnmcl7
    Johnmcl7 Posts: 2,817 Forumite
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    As Nilrem has said, the PSU rating is simply the maximum power the power supply can deliver and in reality, won't likely be using anything near that most of the time particularly for a machine like the Aurora R5 which has a high rated power supply to give it the capability to run two high end graphics cards.

    There's some actual power consumption figures here (total system, not just the GPU) and this is with a more power hungry processor than the Aurora R5 uses and top end graphics cards:

    http://www.anandtech.com/show/11180/the-nvidia-geforce-gtx-1080-ti-review/16

    John
  • esuhl
    esuhl Posts: 9,409 Forumite
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    almillar wrote: »
    Have a look at the back of the computer for a label, there should be information on it, including, say 500W. To keep it simple, assume it uses all of that (it won't, that's the max it can use). So 500w for 8 hours is 4 Kilo Watt Hours. 15p per KWh would be a fair price to pay for electric, so 60p per day.

    I reckon a gaming PC (with monitor) would be unlikely to draw more than 300W on average (even if it does have a 600W+ PSU), so that would be 36p a day.

    If the PC isn't being used to play games, it's probably drawing around 200W, so 24p a day.

    That'd be my rough guesstimate, anyway.
  • Jackmydad
    Jackmydad Posts: 9,186 Forumite
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    As it happens I ran a test on mine with a power meter a couple of weeks ago.
    Mixed use. Surfing, photo editing, gaming.
    10 hours 17 minutes. Total running time. It was idle for part of that.
    29.91 pence.
  • Billy101
    Billy101 Posts: 48 Forumite
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    Haha, it happens. How much is the power supply? Does it have any graphics card?

    If no, then bill would be of a negligible amount.
  • Billy101
    Billy101 Posts: 48 Forumite
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    Jackmydad wrote: »
    As it happens I ran a test on mine with a power meter a couple of weeks ago.
    Mixed use. Surfing, photo editing, gaming.
    10 hours 17 minutes. Total running time. It was idle for part of that.
    29.91 pence.


    This is what you would get. In a roundabout.
  • rtho782
    rtho782 Posts: 1,189 Forumite
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    I have a 4790k, 1080ti SLI, and full tilt it uses about 600W, drawing about 660W from the wall.

    That's about the top end, it's doubtful yours will use that much.
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