Articles - How much does it cost to run your electrical items: you may be shocked

[Tidus]

Ouch! Which model is that?

Panasonic (TH-50PZ70B) it's a 50" Plasma so I knew it would be high but that is still a suprise, this is a Full HD set and was not a cheap so you'd think there'd be some power saving features. After a quick look through the "operating instructions" as Panasonic calls them, under power consumtion you get Average Use (569 W) and Standby Condition (0.5 W).

I think I'll have to get a power monitor and see how it "averages out" myself.

[dangel]

Phew, my TV 'only' eats 240W when operating

[sauzee]

wow, some scary figures there. Great article!

[Anth]

You haven't said what version Xbox you tested, the Jasper uses considerably less electricity than the Xenon for example.

[Tarinder]

You haven't said what version Xbox you tested, the Jasper uses considerably less electricity than the Xenon for example.

Yup, you're right. It's the Falcon, bought in October 2008.

[Johnnyboy]

Remember that nearly all of that used electricity ends up as heat which keeps your house roasty-toasty, saving your central heating from kicking in as often.

What you spend on the swings, you save on the roundabouts (with the UK climate anyway!)

[Tarinder]

Talking about swings and roundabouts, the extra heat is a boon in winter, but noisome in summer.

[Funkstar]

Zak has gone into great deapth about this electricity usage vs heat production topic

[SamanthaCarter]

No electricity bills for me =D My accommodation fees cover it- unlimited =D

[Zak33]

it's become obsession for me

BUt I'm pleased to say that a PS2 or a Wii uses under 35w full tilt, and the very fact that I now that is sad, but it's good....

gaming is cheap on those two consoles

[Ciber]

Also worth getting one of these, so much easier than pulling the plugs out! http://www.ebuyer.com/product/130425 http://cpc.farnell.com/jsp/search/pr...?sku=PL0920487 http://www.argos.co.uk/static/Produc...+EXTENSION.htm

[rdhir]

Couple of things as I'm very obsessed with leccy usage too.

1) It would be nice if you do this article to do a standby wattage article for appliances especially.
Some appliances were notorious for only switching off the display and consuming virtually the same amount of electricity

2) If we are all serious about this, I think it would be good to add this to every appliance review. Power draw is a serious issue and it would be nice if reviewers did as you did for all kit, so for example mobile phone, watts to recharge, + power consumption of a charger left it with no phone. Some of these things may be negligible, but highlighting these issues stops manufacturers cutting the wrong corners.

3) I'm amazed at the C2D power usage. Pehaps rather than saying C2D usage nowadays we should always specufy GPU as well as its the combination that generates the power draw. I've always focused on minimal power PCs as most are idle. And for the last few years I've measure the output. For example I've just built 2 mini ITX workstations which are based on AMD X25600+/4GB DDR2 800/120GB 2.5" HD/780G chipset. draw when running memtest 80W. I can't wait to load XP and do some more testing with C&Q enabled. I've also just build an i7 920/X58/6GB DDR3 1600/4x 1TB system and without the drives, power on draw is 100W and memtest draw is 130W. I am very pleased with both figures. It also makes me wonder why people say 500W minimum power supply.If you are building a server and not overclocking, then not only is it a waste of money to put in 800W, but it will lead to inefficient PSU use as using PSUs at less than 50% load can mean dropping quite badly on their efficiency curve.

Perhaps hexus could do an article on right sizing a PSU. There would be lot of meat in such an article to make sure one allowed for the right loading, ie I try and make a machine with 60-80% load, as this provides a good balance of efficiency, headroom for expansion, headroom for inrush demands, quietness (fully loaded = fan on max) and efficiency (efficiency curves are best at 80-90% generally)

Cheers

Rajiv

[HSK]

The meters i ordered actually arrived this morning! Only thing is, i need to find out how much the charge for elec (kw per hour) to program them correctly, should be on the bill yes?

[Rob_B]

Should be, or just ring your provider.

I'm just used to turning my xbox/tv/sky+ off at night or when we're out for the day, no need for a device to tell me what they'd use when I turn them off anyway

[SiM]

An average reading was calculated after running the appliance for two minutes.

Tarinder, don't you think a longer test is necessary to get it reasonably accurate. E.g. a fridge doesn't have the cooling mechanism running 24/7 but it will for the first 2 minutes after turning it on (if turning on from warm, or the converse if turning on from cold)

[Ciber]

My PC draws from the wall ~200w at idle and 300-370w when running a Game. That is: Athlon 64 4000+ @ 2.7, 2gb PC4000, Asus A8N SLI Premium, 600gb (2x320gb SATA), XFX GTX260 XXX, Seasonic X900 PSU, Thermaltake Tsunami Dream, Samsung 275T LCD. Overvolting the CPU to get the overclock increses the electricity use. Overclocking is bad for your leccy bills! Plus about 30 to 50w for the Z5500 speakers on top of that! It all even uses about 27w including the modem/router and speakers when supposedly turned off, so I use a switched extension lead to turn off whatever I'm not using at the time at the plug. So leaving it on 'standby' for a year would cost about £30.

This thread is very relevant to me just now, as I put £70 in the key meter today to see me though Feb. Most of that goes on heating, as I don't have gas, but stuff like my PC makes a contribution!