Do our computer systems really cost all that much to run?

When I hear about significant power usage reductions of the new Intel processors when compared to my original i7 Nehalem Bloomfield, I think of the $ savings when it comes to my power bill. But does this really apply to the home user? How much does 2011 Sandy Bridge save over 2008-2010 Nehalems? What about Haswell in 2013?

I connected this thing to find out, only pennies a day were used at 0.2815 + 0.00068 see below ↓ = 0.02883 or 2.9 cents per KWH rate.

I thought I programmed it wrong, does that really mean that for home use, cost of computer power usage is not as big of a deal as some people may think?


The device also has a 'Watts' display, does that mean when I connect it to my computer, I could really see how strong of a Power Supply would really be sufficient for my system?


EDIT:

c627627 said:

Well I just want to say that I just called the Board of Public Utilities and they told me that no, the Energy Rate Comp on the bill + Environmental Sur is *not* the rate per KWH. As a matter of fact, the actual rate doesn't seem to be listed anywhere on the bill.


They told me it is ¢6.4 which is still pretty good but more than double the rate of ¢2.9 I was going off of.


So be sure you know what your actual cost per KWH is. It may not be on the bill, which is strange, why wouldn't it be?

Click to expand...

_____________________
Intel i7 950 [200] BCLK x 20 = 4.0 GHz @ [1.4000] CPU Voltage & [1.35000] QPI/DRAM Uncore Voltage, Batch 3029A40
3 x 1GB G.SKIL DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) [DDR3-1691MHz] 10-10-10-24 @ 1.64 DRAM Bus Voltage
ASUS P6T Deluxe v.1 [LGA 1366 Intel X58] BIOS 2209
Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme 1366 RT with 120mm Scythe S-Flex F fan
ASUS EAH4850 Radeon HD 4850 1GB DDR3 @ 625 MHz GPU & 1986 MHz Memory
OCZ Agility 60GB SSD
Asus Xonar DX sound card
Antec nine hundred case, two front 120mm fans, one back 120mm Fan, one top 200mm fan
Corsair CMPSU-750TX 750W

Put it this way. Running a 1000w light for 18 hours/day added $25/month to my power bill. My computer is the least of my worries A computer, unless folding/crunching 24/7, wont nearly get to 1kw. Most people dont even utilize their computers more than a few hours/day and even then its drawing full wattage. Havent done the math but Id bet leaving my computer on 24/7 for the month and using it, I probably add about $12 - $15/month to my bill.

My point was that it appears to cost pennies a day, which would be like +/- one dollar.

Yeah, thats one of the reasons why Ive never been a huge fan of "power savings" as computers really dont use all that much unless they are being pushed for any great amount of time.

The average person probably spends more on lights being left on that they dont need more so than the cost of running a computer.

For average users, no of course it isn't a big difference.

If it is running full load 24/7 then it won't really matter.

Keep in mind the national average for cost per KW/h is about $0.11, much more than your insanely low $0.029

Yeah, my electric bill wishes it lived up where you are, c6. Last month topped $500.

And going with the computer usage, depending where you live, you also have to figure cooling the heat the computer puts out. Since I am a DC'er and farmer, I have to deal with the heatload of several computers running 24/7, which is a significant hit to the pocket in summer. I really need to put my kill-a-watt on all my systems and see what the direct load of just the computers is.

$10-50 a month is fine but at times I may have a lot of rigs going on a crunch or fold. These processors do make a diffrence when compounded.

A little off topic: On an individual level there is little diffrence but add the power hogg video cards out there it is really bad for the kid in his room. Many parents have no idea why their power bill is 50-100 bucks higher but juniour is folding at 100% with his SLi gaming rig.

Some people see energy star and think it is all good but that is not the case.

Now on a tangent. The power savings of the CPU are not the only only thing that needs to be looked at. Yes the core temp may be 100C but on each die shrink that 100C puts off less BTU and that means that the home cooling does not have to compensate as much.

Check out http://www.eia.doe.gov/cneaf/electricity/epm/table5_6_a.html

Only Hawaii has it worse than me, and yes it really adds up, even a single rig

I suppose 24 hour folding rigs, multiple rigs can factor in but

ratbuddy said:

...and yes it really adds up, even a single rig

Click to expand...

...people kind of got that generally widespread idea because of posts just like this ↑.


But the thread topic is actual numbers, actual proof and system specs. Does anyone have else have numbers? I am at pennies a day using ↓


_____________________
Intel i7 950 [200] BCLK x 20 = 4.0 GHz @ [1.4000] CPU Voltage & [1.35000] QPI/DRAM Uncore Voltage, Batch 3029A40
3 x 1GB G.SKIL DDR3 1333 (PC3 10666) [DDR3-1691MHz] 10-10-10-24 @ 1.64 DRAM Bus Voltage
ASUS P6T Deluxe v.1 [LGA 1366 Intel X58] BIOS 2209
Thermalright Ultra-120 eXtreme 1366 RT with 120mm Scythe S-Flex F fan
ASUS EAH4850 Radeon HD 4850 1GB DDR3 @ 625 MHz GPU & 1986 MHz Memory
OCZ Agility 60GB SSD
Asus Xonar DX sound card
Antec nine hundred case, two front 120mm fans, one back 120mm Fan, one top 200mm fan
Corsair CMPSU-750TX 750W

I got a kill-a-watt on Friday, so I'll check out what I'm getting when I get home from work. I guess I'll use this:

(Watts / 1000) * hours of use in a month * cost per kWh = cost to run the PC for a month

Does the math look right?

muddocktor said:

Yeah, my electric bill wishes it lived up where you are, c6. Last month topped $500.

Click to expand...

Wow and I thought our bill of $128.93 was to much >_>;

If you have got a 24 hour folding computer, then your bill might go up a little, but for just normal computer use, you can hardly notice it.

Does anyone have else have numbers?

Yea I do, I have a meter very similar to c627627. I bough it March 21st and its been monitoring the power usage for all the electronics at my desk constantly. (I have never reset it to zero) I can post a picture of it if anyone would like or would need to see it? I'd be happy to you only need ask.

List of electronics monitored by it,

2 - computers
2 - monitors (lcd)
1 - router
1 - modem
1 - 8 port switch
1 - printer
1 - sound system
1 - desk lamp (60 watt bulb)

Today it reads 311 Kwh.

I'd have to double check but right now I think we pay .15 a Kwh.

311x.15 = 46.65 divided by what? by my count roughly 64 days? 46.64/64=0.72875

So rounded up be what 73 cents a day.

Both computers are on all day everyday, 6:30-7:00am to around midnight. The other stuff listed, well you know they are sucking juice 24/7 even if not actually in use. The desk lamp, its is only on for very short periods of time, say if I need it to take a close look at something fairly small.

Edit> add 1 - network camera to the list.

xploer1 said:

Does anyone have else have numbers?

Yea I do, I have a meter very similar to c627627. I bough it March 21st and its been monitoring the power usage for all the electronics at my desk constantly. (I have never reset it to zero) I can post a picture of it if anyone would like or would need to see it? I'd be happy to you only need ask.

List of electronics monitored by it,

2 - computers
2 - monitors (lcd)
1 - router
1 - modem
1 - 8 port switch
1 - printer
1 - sound system
1 - desk lamp (60 watt bulb)

Today it reads 311 Kwh.

I'd have to double check but right now I think we pay .15 a Kwh.

311x.15 = 46.65 divided by what? by my count roughly 64 days? 46.64/64=0.72875

So rounded up be what 73 cents a day.

Both computers are on all day everyday, 6:30-7:00am to around midnight. The other stuff listed, well you know they are sucking juice 24/7 even if not actually in use. The desk lamp, its is only on for very short periods of time, say if I need it to take a close look at something fairly small.

Edit> add 1 - network camera to the list.

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What kind of usage? A folding or gaming rig can draw 500+ and us farmers heat with our stuff in the winter I cant afford to run my stuff in the summer months though because of the AC offset.

Welcome to the forums, xploer1. Substituting for my electricity rates: that would translate to 14.6 cents a day for two computers. 7 cents per computer.


And, yes, most of us do think that folding rigs cost a lot of money to run. Now we need numbers that show how much more than 7 cents a day for me or 36 cents per rig for the poster with two computers above.

What kind of usage?

One for the most part just monitors video stream from two cameras displaying it on the screen.

This one just whatever I want/need it to do day to day. Surf the web, emails with business use type stuff. Few video conversions for my sons for their ipods. Very little if any gaming though, my boys have and do from time to time but not a lot of that kinda thing, and no folding at least not yet.

After reading so much about it I'm considering setting up one to do so. Doing so with the older computer for example as its just sits at idle all day while monitoring the cameras anyway.
Its a quad core, not a fast one by today's standards but at least so far based on what I understand, it should have no trouble handling both those two tasks simultaneously.

Oh and I wasn't trying to suggest it was high or low either one, just posting what my usage looked like based on what the little meter has shown during the period of time it has been in place.

MattNo5ss said:

I got a kill-a-watt on Friday, so I'll check out what I'm getting when I get home from work. I guess I'll use this:

(Watts / 1000) * hours of use in a month * cost per kWh = cost to run the PC for a month

Does the math look right?

Click to expand...

Right if you want kw you need to divide by 1000 times the number of hours then by the cost per KWh. lets assume your psu is using 450watts from the ac outlet. that would be .45KW, running for one hour would be .45KWh, etc etc.

if you are trying to keep your power bill as low as possible the right size psu for the job. also looking at one that is the most efficent at the load you will be running even if for 24/7 operation.

i think [H] did a test with those kill-a-watt machines and found they are not very accurate at all.


http://hardforum.com/showpost.php?p=1032190998&postcount=7

219w DC and 215w AC. Yeah go Kill-A-Go I am making energy here baby!

Or you could look at the correct numbers on the current transducer next to it 2.94A *120v=352.8w or 62% efficient as opposed to the Kill-A-Watt's 102% efficiency.

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I always use a AmpMeter on my multimeter. I simply do the math and I am done.

Ronbert said:

Wow and I thought our bill of $128.93 was to much >_>;

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lol same here, and here I was complaining about a $150 bill.