How much Power does a Gaming PC Consume

If you want to know how much power does a gaming PC consumes at rest and on a load, you have landed at the right spot to know the answer of this question.

We are not only going to check the consumption on load, but also the consumption at rest. Finally, we will analyze how much a computer spends on 24 hours so that you can calculate your energy savings.

Influence of Components on Consumption

In a gaming computer, its energy consumption will depend on that of each component individually. However, there are certain components whose consumption is really small most of the time.

See Also: How to Choose Power Supply for PC Gaming

Without a doubt, the great key in consumption is in the processor and, especially in a gaming computer, the graphics card.

This last piece can consume more than 400W or more than 500W on its own, while a processor does not usually need more than 200W.

To show how much an entire gaming computer consumes, without unnecessarily separating piece by piece, we are going to use the data from our graphics card reviews.

There, we do consumption tests where we measure in the plug itself what the entire PC consumes, and not just the component.

How much power does a Gaming PC Consume at Rest

As we have seen, the graphics card is the key component when measuring how much a gaming computer consumes.

However, at rest the situation could change, since we will not be demanding anything from the graphics card. In fact, even the screen could be off.

The truth is that, although the graphics card is practically in disuse, it does influence consumption a lot.

The GPU does not “turn off” at any time, unless we are talking about a laptop, where technologies such as NVIDIA Optimus are used to suddenly switch from the dedicated to the integrated GPU. There may be differences of up to 30 watts at idle depending on the graphics card.

See Also: Things to Consider Before Buying Gaming Headsets

So, exactly how much does a gaming computer consume at idle? Taking into account the data from our analysis, it could be said that between 50W and 80W as a general rule. If the screen goes black, it should drop below 50W on almost any computer.

On the other hand, if instead of a strict “rest” we are using the PC normally (such as browsing the internet), the consumption will be a little higher, and above all there will be some peaks of more than 100W. On average, it will probably stay below 100W in any situation.

If your goal is to save energy, the best thing you can do is to turn off the screen regularly, not only the PC will consume a little less, but it will also save the consumption of the screen itself.

If it is a gaming monitor, its consumption can go above 100Wand by turning off the screen you can save 100W.

How much power does a Gaming PC Consume While Playing

We are now going to check the consumption on load, that is, by running a stress test. This is a faithful representation of the average consumption when we are playing a game.

We speak of the average because at the moment of truth the consumption is very variable when we play, and it depends on the load that each specific scene applies to our PC.

See Also: Things You Need to Know Before Buying a Gaming Monitor

With our data, we see that a computer can consume up to 600W while playing. Actually, it is normal that it consumes less than 400W or even less than 300W, if your graphics card is mid-range or medium-low. Only the new high-end cards consume more than 400W.

Therefore, we can see that what a computer consumes in these situations is not such a big deal.

How much power does a Gaming PC Consume in 24 Hours

The final question that we are going to answer is: How much does a computer spend if it is turned on 24 hours a day? As we said before, with the screen off, consumption should go down, and also over time it should stabilize a lot.

The operating system will know that the PC is not being used and will stop certain services, so that only what is necessary is executed (for example, if we are downloading something).

And it is very common to have the PC on all day, because you have to do some downloading, we have a server running, etc.

In general, at times when the PC is idle for several hours, we could talk about 40-50W of consumption for a gaming computer, and about 20-30W for a normal computer. It is quite little!

See Also: Types of Gaming Peripherals for Beginners

And how does all this impact the electricity bill? In this situation of high energy prices, we try to reduce spending on practically everything, right?

We talk about this in depth in our article on how much my PC consumes, including in-depth tips on how to reduce your computer’s power consumption.

In any case, we have seen that normally a PC does not cost 10 Dollars per month on the electricity bill, and at most it could be 5.

We hope that this article has helped you understand the consumption of your equipment, in order to make the necessary decisions, whether or not you want to reduce it.

Everything depends on each computer, but the general guidelines that we have given are almost always fulfilled.