Power Cost Calculator
Find out what your gaming sessions add to your electricity bill. Enter how much power your setup draws while gaming, how long you play, and the price per kWh on your bill.
Include the monitor and speakers if you want the whole setup. A plug-in power meter gives the most accurate figure.
An example value. Replace it with the price on your bill, in your currency.
- Per day
- Per month
- Per year
Finding your power draw. The number on your power supply is its maximum, not what the PC uses. The most accurate way is a plug-in power meter between the wall and your PC. Without one, add up the power ratings of your graphics card and processor from their makers' spec pages, plus a little for the rest of the system, as our PSU calculator does. For a console, a power meter is the simplest way to find out.
Lowering the cost. A frame rate cap at your monitor's refresh rate stops the graphics card working on frames you never see, and is one of the simplest ways to cut power draw. See V-Sync vs G-Sync vs FreeSync for how to cap frames cleanly.
How this works
- Energy per session in kilowatt-hours (kWh) = power draw in watts × hours played ÷ 1,000.
- Cost = kWh × your electricity price per kWh, which is on your bill.
- Monthly and yearly figures multiply the daily cost by 30 and 365.
Use the power your system actually draws, not the PSU's rating: a 750W power supply doesn't draw 750W. A plug-in power meter gives the real figure. Draw also changes from game to game and is much lower at the desktop.
Where the figures come from: Unit conversion only: 1 kWh is 1,000 watts for one hour.