I am pondering a new computer for gaming. The dudes I game with all have recently replaced their rigs, so I'm the holdout. They're PCI Express, I'm still AGP. Many are the reasons I don't want to buy something new: $$, time, and abusing the earth. To address the last, I pulled out our Kill-A-Watt and hooked the computer power bar into it.
Network-only: 22W
Computer on but screen off (or in "I'm off" blinky mode): 106W
Computer in normal mode (or with screen saver, which is equivalent): 174-200W (usually 174)
Computer while playing video games: 200-220W
I suspect if I buy a newer computer, it'll be much higher wattage. In particular, Tom's Hardware says powerful video cards are not very good at dialing themselves back when rendering Firefox or Word.
What is your computer rig, and what is its wattage?
DF
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2 comments:
I'm pretty sure I'm an energy pig with respect to computers and other electronic devices like TVs and DVRs, but I haven't measured it.
I'm afraid it's rigs: a couple laptops, a Shuttle XPC, the machine I built from newegg back when a few of us piggy-backed on JJ's research, and five-count-em-five old NetP beige boxes. Only one of the beige boxes is used regularly, but it's on all the time as it's my firewall (FreeBSD/ipfw setup from 2004). The others are off and unplugged, and if I were ambitious I'd wipe and either donate or recycle them, but I'm not very ambitious.
The newegg machine is a big case with a 450W power supply; I'm not sure I want to know how closely it's competing with our refrigerator for current draw. I forget the power supply specs on the shuttle. Both the newegg and shuttle are only on when in use, but presumably draw something when "off".
My numbers were all on a computer with a 430W power supply, and the actual numbers came in quite a bit below, so have heart and do the measurement. :) You can borrow my Kill-A-Watt if you wish.
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