I was just wondering if anyone knows how much it would cost to power something for a year?

Eg: my CCTV pc that is running 550watts 24/7 365days a year.

Would it be more cost effective to buy another pc running less power And have that on 24/7.

I can get a good enough PC for under £100, so if someone could tell me the avarege price to run the above then I can work out if it's worth it and how long it will take before the PC has paid for itself.

I am charged 11.8p per Kilowatt Hour, so 550 Watts is about 4818 Kilowatt hours, which will cost £568.

I use the rough guideline of £1 for every watt for running it a year - so a 20 Watt light bulb cost roughly £20 per year.

Or if something is say 60 watts but only used about a third of the time, this would also cost £20 per year (a third of £60).

Bet the above answer is not what you wanted, I have a plugin device that gives you actual cost so you can find out what a fridge costs to run by using it over a few days.

Did you get the 550W figure from the power supply unit? As the figure quoted here just means the PC can draw as much as it needs upto the rated wattage (rather than running continuously at this wattage). For example you could throw in a 400W or a 750W PSU in the case, and provided it is enough to power the components you'll find they draw about the same power (although due to heat and capacitor aging the 750W will probably work out more effient in the long run).

To get a more accurate estimate a power monitoring device like diggingdeeper suggests would be the easiest way.

Don't forget the £100 PC will draw power too.

550 watts for a camer system seems alot bud, you sure thats right?

...its prolly wired to an electric fence as well

yes mate it is 550W, Its a multipurpose system. Its a Quad Core PC that is also used for watching and Editing HD videos using a HD graphics card, So its good to have the power there.

its great cos it runs flawlessly at all times, even if I open it up to loads of applications at the same time. but when I came home today I could hear it running and it got me thinking to how much power it is using.

If I bought a PC with the spec to run the CCTV, say 200watts then I'm guessing from the above comments I will already be saving money.

If the PC only needs to use 200W it will only draw 200W regardless of the 'size' of the power pack.

That's not to say a CPU with a lower TDP as well as lower power RAM, graphics card and hard drive won't save you money on your electicity bill...

Yer well that's the thing, the graphics card was a main reason for the high watt PSU. It's only 3gb of ram but it does not need that for the CCTV also a quadcore is overkill.

So it's kinda like when jeremy clarkson used a v8 to power a blender. Sure it did it but so could a normal blender lol.

I think I've kinda answered my own question here lol. Think a cheap pc is the answer? :S

....but a V8 blender is sooooooo cool

V8 BLENDER!

Silly boy's nonsense!

Exactly, even for a fully decked garden a bloke would need a sit on lawn mower

That might be a good idea - I've seen the mower in the shed - the kind that just tickles the tops of the grass - I think the grass probably laughs when it sees you get it out

I would have doubted it is that much power in normal use, I would expect that is medium level surge power, I can pop along with my power meter if you want an accurate measurement.

Iv just ordered a barebones pc from big pockets. Running 180watts. I will add a sata drive Onbord wireless and windows 7 32bit. That should pull alot less power even at peak.

Would b interesting to know what the quadcore is pulling tho ? I offen run pinaccle studio 14HD and have the tunes playing, I noticed that the USB desk light dims to the beat lol.