Electricity woes

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I am building my first PC, and I just bought an R9 290 (there's a flash sale on newegg for $200). Where I live, the highest rate is 10¢ per kw/h (it's tiered, 7 for the first so much, then 9, then 10, going with 10 to make it easier).

I've been seeing very high costs for running a computer, upwards from around $20 a month. I will probably play games roughly 10 hours a week if that's helpful. Is there a good way to get an estimate of how much the power bill will go up?

I'm planning on building with the 290, an i5 4590, and a ~600W bronze power supply.

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Should invest in a gold rated PSU if your electricity cost is high

Otherwise you can just cap your frame rate in games and the GPU will only work as hard as it has to

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I see. I'll have to watch for sales on a gold one. A friend recommended I do that, I'll also learn how to set frame caps.

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And when crimson launches you'll be able to set overclocking on a game by game basis, so I'm pretty sure that means you can also underclock as well

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Thanks for making this thread you reminded me of my long term project I have plugged in.

I have a Kill-a-watt with my desk plugged into it. Desk meaning anything I use at my desk, this includes

  • 10W Lamp
  • Computer (see specs on profile)
  • Two Monitors
  • Speakers
  • Phone charger

It's been counting kWh for the past 60days and 8 hours Or roughly two months (started sept 20th)

In that time I have drawn 249 kWh.

This breaks down to about 4.15 kWhs per day, Even at 10 cents that's about $12.45 every month to run my life

I usually have my computer sleeping at night or when I work and then I game for probably 2-3 hours every day.

I also have large monitors which drink the power, my 27inch 1440p draws about 52W continuously when on, and my rig can draw anywhere from 175W-500W dependng on the type of load

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It's simple math as long as you have all the numbers.

I'm assuming you alreawdy have a graphics card and you're upgrading to a more power hungry r9-290. All you have to do it take the difference in power draw multiplied by time and then your bill per kWh.

It's not going to be much Depending on what you're coming from it may be less than $10 per year.
If it's a brand new rig you're going to see a big of a step up per month

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I see. This is my first gaming computer, right now I just have a laptop that stays on. It's going to be scary seeing that jump.

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For just the computer your usage is going to be much less than my numbers

You've got a much more effiecent processor and you probably don't have as hefty a monitor solution.

You'd probably look at about $10-11 per month, More if you end up gaming more on it

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