A lot of people ask me how many amps their gaming PC will use. And the answer is... it depends.
Every gaming PC is different and, therefore, will have a different power usage. In this blog post, I'm going to break down the typical power usage for a gaming PC and how you can reduce your own power usage.
The first thing you need to understand is that there are two types of power usage for a gaming PC: peak and average.
Peak power usage is the maximum amount of power your gaming PC will use at any given moment, while average power usage is the amount of power your gaming pc uses over time.
First Determine Watts
So, how much power does a typical gaming PC use? The answer is that it varies, but you first must find out how many watts are being used. Most gaming PCs will use between 300 and 600 watts.
To determine how much your PC uses, you will need to look up the specs of the components of your PC, like GPU and CPU.
It's worth noting that the majority of power consumption will come from your graphics card.
In fact, your GPU will account for around 75% of your total power usage while gaming. The CPU will account for around 15%, and the rest of your components will make up the final 10%.
Next, Determine The Voltage Supply In Your Area
You will want to next determine the voltage supplied by outlets in your area.
For instance, the USA and Canada use 120 Volts of supply voltage, while Taiwan, Japan, Saudi Arabia, etc., use 100 volts, the UK 230 Volts, and parts of South Asia can use 220 or 230 volts.
So, you will want to confirm what the voltage is in your part of the world or country, as it can vary greatly.
Formula To Calculate Amps
Once you have your estimated watts and know the voltage in your area, you can calculate your amperage by dividing the number of watts your setup draws by the number of volts supplied to you in your area (amps=watts/volts).
So, for example, a setup that uses 500 watts supplied by 120 volts would work out to be 4.16 amps (500/120=4.16).
With this in mind, on average, by our estimates, gaming PCs draw an average of 300-600 watts. At 120 volts supplied, that’s between 2.5 and 5 amps.
Reducing Power Usage
That said, there are a few things you can do to reduce your power usage.
For starters, make sure your PC is running on the latest versions of graphics drivers and Windows.
Older versions of these can actually consume more power than newer ones. You should also install any updates for your games, as these can also help reduce power consumption.
Finally, if you're not playing games or using demanding applications, set your graphics card to run in "eco" or "power saving" mode.
This mode will lower the clock speed of your GPU and or the speed of your GPU fans which will, in turn, lower your overall power consumption.
Conclusion:
Hopefully, this gives you a better understanding of how much power your gaming PC uses and how you can reduce your own personal power consumption
As I said before, every gaming PC is different, so it's impossible to give an exact number for how much power yours will use. However, following the tips I've outlined above should help you keep your power usage down to a minimum.
Happy gaming!
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