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How many amps does a gaming PC pull?

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Stryfe

Member
Joined
Mar 4, 2002
Location
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada
My roomate and I would like to have some friends over for some LAN action but we live in a 100 year old apartment block and power is limited so I need to be careful how much we put on each circut. How many amps does an average gaming PC draw from the wall?
 
I just ran a test using my seasonic power angel with my opteron 170 oc'd to 2770 with both cores maxed out on sp2004 and benched with 3dmark 03 and 05 for a minute on each program. AA/AF was fully maxed and 6800GT maxed to 420/1130.
The monitor read an average of 2.8-4.0 amps pull during the test
 
I usually figure 5 amps per computer (600 watts), I always overestimate because popping a circuit with a computer on it is a bad idea. If I have too many computers to power, then I will actually calculate how much power draw that is being used and distribute accordingly. I don't care if I break the cirucit that monitors or other equipment are on so I group those together if need be. I have tapped into lighting circuits with connectors to get more power. One time I even unplugged my main refrigerator (dedicated circuit) and used my mini fridge for drinks so I could squeeze a couple more computers in. I've since split up my wiring onto more breakers so I don't have that problem again.
 
Thanks for the replies guys, they'll help me out a lot. Especially thank you to kimochii72 for actually going to the trouble of testing this out. :)
 
I can do some more tests if you like as this device is fun to use. The above number of amps was a round-about number, but I don't remember it hitting over 4amps draw with the whole system loaded.
 
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