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Digging Into the Electrical Cost of PC Gaming
New submitter MBAFK writes "My coworker Geoff and I have been taking power meters home to see what the true cost of PC gaming is. Not just the outlay for hardware and software, but what the day-to-day costs really are. If you assume a 20 hour a week habit, and using $0.11 a KWH, actually playing costs Geoff $30.83 a year. If Geoff turns his PC off when he is not using it, he could save $66 a year."
I'm not sure how this has anything to do with the cost of PC gaming, considering that my mother, who only uses her computer for Facebook and TurboTax, could see the exact same benefits by doing the exact same things the article suggests.
I bought a kill-a-watt meter a while back when I started dabbling in Bitcoin mining and it was a real eye-opener.
It's a very similar problem to OP's situation since Bitcoin mining and gaming both use high performance video cards.
Meanwhile the Geoff and his coworker discuss these types atrocities at their daily meeting at Starbucks while sipping on their third expresso.
I've got 101 mod points and you can't have them!
What about switching out power hungry gaming cards for newer, more efficient cards? This year's mid-end model may have comparable performance to last year's mid-high end model but might draw half the power. Over time, the lower power consumption adds up, not to mention you can get by with a smaller power supply. Likewise, trading in your hard drives for a solid state drive (maybe using a green HDD for extra storage)? And for old timers, switching out CRTs for LCDs? Overall, I think it'd be easier for people to upgrade to more energy efficient components than it would be for them to change their PC usage habits. Lowering the sleep/HDD shutoff/monitor shutoff timers can make a big difference too without having to remember to shut down your PC every day or waiting for it to reboot. Not an option for everyone, but gamers usually aren't on a shoe-string budget or else they wouldn't be able to afford the PC and the games in the first place.
Wow, earth shattering news here, turning off your PC when your not using it saves you a significant amount of money! What about factoring in cooling costs. High end gaming machines put out a lot of heat too. Since many gamers are using SSD's these days, sleeping your computer is great, they resume so fast. It's just common sense. I make sure everyone in my house shuts down or sleeps their machines at night if there is not a valid reason why they are on. It really does help. The real problem with this list is where is the spec list? That dual or triple GPU machine, that is water cool, and has a huge overclock will use a ton more power then your i5, single GPU machine. Finding an average gaming machine is tough to do.
Everyone always has a right to complain, but some people's complaints are silly and make me think they're idiots, or to put it nicely, their personality is generously infused with irony.
I can't say whether or not you're an idiot, though, because you merely said "too high" rather than explaining why you think your rates are "too high" -- you might have good reasons which expose corruption in your state's PRC, or you might have amazingly stupid and arrogant reasons, based on arbitrarily saying things without thinking hard about them, and where even those shallow thoughts are founded completely on a lack of information and evidence.
So who knows? You didn't even give numbers for "too high" (which wouldn't tell the whole story either, but would probably bias me one way or the other).
If they were using Free Trade Watts, it wouldn't be an issue.
All in all, that is really peanuts in terms of electicity bills. If you are spending roughly 2 hours a day gaming, a normal person with a full-time job and a family would have very little time to do much else that can sink money.
Considering that yearly electricty bills routinely reach about a $1000+ for a standard household, this added 10% due to gaming is pretty insignificant when compared to other hobbies...like racing cars for example.
Sure, there may be cheaper hobbies, but I honestly don't think anyone well-settled enough to be practising a daily hobby and deriving enjoyment from it finds it a problem to spend 8 bucks 50 cents a month for their recreation.
Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem.
As a ballpark, for most regions I find calculating the yearly cost of an item on 24/7 to be about $1/watt.
Rephrased, at 8.76 cents per kilowatt hour, one watt year costs about a buck per year. Plus or minus leap years and leap seconds. After endless add on taxes, and fees, and fees disguised as taxes, and taxes disguised as fees, that's probably about what I'm paying when I write a check.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
I have a meter as well; one thing to consider with replacement appliances is the reliability and longevity of the appliance.
I have a 33 year old Sub Zero built-in refrigerator in my new house. It's so old that it has only one knob for temperature adjustment, and the refrigerator compartment on top is slave to the freezer setting. I've removed the cover to the compressor and coils to clean them, and I've found some indication that a service or two have been performed over the years, but compared to a friend's brand new LG unit that's had to be serviced twice in eight months and had cost them $1600 to purchase, I'm happy to use this fridge for the moment. Plus, a new built-in refrigerator will cost between $4000 and $8000 depending on what brand and features are chosen. This unit can run for a very, very long time for $4000 worth of electricity.
As for TVs, one doesn't necessarily have to use the fancy, big TV all of the time either. For many years I had a projector screen that could roll down in front of the entertainment center, blocking the 27" TV in it, so I could use my projector when I wanted to watch something of substance. Now, I have the projector in a different room from the TV we watch the news on, and we only use it when we actually want to watch a movie or some other thing where surround sound and a big image matter. Obviously the roll-down method won't work with a fixed TV, but putting the fancy home theatre TV into a different room would.
My current PC (an old Dual-Xeon box) has a hardware sleep switch that ties into some pins on the motherboard, and when pressed the computer drops down to a low power state. When I'm done using it I just put it to sleep, and when I want to use it again it comes back in about three seconds. Works well, keeps all of my programs running fine, and saves power.
There are lots of techniques that can be used to save power, but the biggest hogs in the house (HVAC, hot water heater, refrigerator, oven/range/cooktop) don't hold a candle to the consumer devices that everyone always panics about. If you want the most bang for your buck, insulate your house. Change your windows. Plant some trees that increase shade on the structure. Turn your thermostat up a couple of degrees and install some high efficiency ceiling fans to keep the air moving a little. Sure, turn off the electronics you're not using, but don't assume that it'll be earth-shattering on your power bills just by doing that.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
My home has on average 100 watts of power available. I can use more in the short term, but doing so depletes the battery and means I'll have to use much less for some part of the week. The wind turbine which is my sole source of power is rated at 750 watts, but only generates that much in absolutely perfect conditions. So I know quite a bit about how to use power economically. I can light my whole house effectively with just 18 watts of LEDs. They're strategically placed, yes - but you can easily read more or less everywhere.
In this situation, the graphics card on my computer (Radeon HD 6850 at 127 watts TDP) is actually the biggest power drain I've got. Obviously, my gaming is limited to two or three hours a day... Power is worth thinking about.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
I'm not sure what exactly the article is trying to convey here, as measuring electrical consumption is merely fine-tuning an existing expense related to a hobby, and an obscenely small amount of money being measured at that (c'mon, ~$30/year? People who will spend twice that much in a month on caffeine just to play said hobby).
Compare playing video games to spending money on cable TV. Or going to the movies. Or riding a bike outside. Discussing literally pennies of electrical savings per day seems rather pointless when you're spending considerably more to sustain that kind of hobby in the first place.
Plus or minus leap years and leap seconds.
Probably less than the cost of the energy needed to calculate it.
You're working on one of the smallest possible incremental changes in your house's electrical usage. What's the point?
The wall warts (AC adapters) scattered about your house almost certainly use and waste more electricity than your PC. The US EPA guesstimated in 2005 that around 200 gigawatts (6% of US total power) goes through these things, and a significant portion of that (30 - 50%) is wasted.
See http://www.buildinggreen.com/auth/article.cfm/2005/3/1/Efficiency-Standards-for-AC-Adapters/ Getting all your wall warts onto centrally controlled power strips would seem like an interesting and money-saving challenge. If anyone has done that, I'd love to hear about it.
What is the cost of your time?
Zero. It took me 3 months in intensive care to figure that out. Now my priorities are different, and I am actually happy.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Someone just moved out of his parents house and realized that electricity actually costs money. Spoiler alert, 40 minute long hot showers also costs a lot on the water and gas bills.
Its hilarious me when teens / early twenty-somethings leave the protected isolation of their parent's nest or university dorm and suddenly get a good ol' does of reality.
I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
If you are playing PC games the lights all over the house may be turned off. If you were not playing PC games then you might be moving around the house with the lights on. Likewise in winter your heating from the game is just heating your house. Even better it's heating the room you are in, so you can let the house be more cool. If you were not gaming perhaps you would be driving your car somewhere, like your girl friends house, and using gasoline. It could be that gaming saves you money over alternative activities in terms of electricity.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.