Using a gaming PC for home office consumes a ton more energy than using a laptop, but how much?. (Comparison Article)

[Keltyx98]

digitec.ch made an interesting article (only in German for now, sorry) where they compare the different power consumption of different machines for home office. 

Turns out that the energy consumption differs a lot but if you would buy an M2 Mac Mini for home office because it's 98% more energy efficient than the gaming computer it wold take you about 8 years to pay it back and start actually saving on the energy bill. (Considering Swiss prices)

 

What this article teaches me is that, if I have a laptop or an office computer laying around I should use it (if it performs well enough for home office). I might save 60$ a year.

 

What do you think?

I was surprised by the NUC's energy consumption given it has a (high-end) mobile CPU.

I would have preferred if they would have included a generic office computer, either prebuilt or DIY. Budget gaming PC and NUC would be overkill for me but a laptop might not be enough.

 

The prices are in Swiss Francs. 1 CHF is about 1 USD

[Holmes108]

I feel like the graph's bars make it look seriously drastic, the difference. And of course by straight percentages, it is, technically. 

 

But I also feel like it's $70 a year, which is borderline meaningless to me (and I am NOT a wealthy man). Certainly not enough to change my habits over, or inconvenience myself in any way (assuming there was an inconvenience). 

 

That all being said, that's the way my mind tends to skew in many things. I scratch my head at people who will cross the street (or even the town!) to buy gas at 1c cheaper, and many other things like that. Perhaps that's WHY i'm not a wealthy man, lmao. But my time, preferences and conveniences are worth something to me.

[Alex Atkin UK]

Just now, Holmes108 said:

That all being said, that's the way my mind tends to skew in many things. I scratch my head at people who will cross traffic to buy gas at 1c cheaper, and many other things like that. Perhaps that's WHY i'm not a wealthy man, lmao. But my time, preferences and conveniences are worth something to me.

My favourite are people who drive miles out of their way to get cheaper gas, likely costing them more due to the extra gas used to get there and back.

 

Similar situation here, depending on your office task then the time wasted waiting for a slower PC to do what you want could easily be offset.  Or the eye strain from using a smaller monitor,  which I might add they didn't factor in above, you can probably double those figures or more to include the monitor on a desktop PC.

[Holmes108]

16 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

My favourite are people who drive miles out of their way to get cheaper gas, likely costing them more due to the extra gas used to get there and back.

 

Similar situation here, depending on your office task then the time wasted waiting for a slower PC to do what you want could easily be offset.  Or the eye strain from using a smaller monitor,  which I might add they didn't factor in above, you can probably double those figures or more to include the monitor on a desktop PC.

 

Yes, or people who line up around the block because a station put fuel on sale by 10 cents vs. the competition.  I've had the gas conversation with my wife even. I've explained that her car has a 50L gas tank. So even a difference of 10 cents a liter (which is massive), only equals $5 across the entire tank, and that's assuming it's bone dry. We both tend to fill up when we get to half. How far are you willing to drive for that two fiddy lol. And that's if you're looking at stations with a 10c difference at the pumps. Usually it's much less.  

 

I have a Costco membership, but I rarely fill up there unless the gas station has empty spots.

 

edit: I shouldn't underestimate the psychological power of a "win" though, lol. And I mean that seriously.

[AbydosOne]

14 minutes ago, Holmes108 said:

But I also feel like it's $70 a year, which is borderline meaningless to me (and I am NOT a wealthy man). Certainly not enough to change my habits over, or inconvenience myself in any way (assuming there was an inconvenience). 

I did the math once, and worked out that for a constant draw device, every watt you add/remove is ±~$1/year (given midwest-US electricity/transmission prices). Convinced me I didn't need to rebuild my server because the handful of watts I'd save would never pay for the price of the new hardware.

[Holmes108]

7 minutes ago, AbydosOne said:

I did the math once, and worked out that for a constant draw device, every watt you add/remove is ±~$1/year (given midwest-US electricity/transmission prices). Convinced me I didn't need to rebuild my server because the handful of watts I'd save would never pay for the price of the new hardware.

 

I suppose to counter argument to all of this, is that if you can find 10 things like this... or 20 things like this in your life, it will start to add up. But what can I say, I'm a small picture kinda guy lol. 

[Lurking]

You would have to re-plug the monitors if you switch between desktop and laptop/tablet all the time. And if you do processing-intensive tasks and use browse/goof around at the same time, you still use the desktop. 

 

the article wasn't really clear on what a "Gaming PC" really is. For all we know it could be an overclocked k-series CPU with a non-rated PSU and power settings to performance and CPU at 100% all the time. That alone makes the article useless. Oh yeah, a tablet uses less power than a gaming PC. No s$$t Sherlock... 

 

If you already have a laptop/tablet, just use that for minor tasks (like browsing around) and that way you also save power for the monitor. Like one uses the phone for many minor tasks that kill time. But I highly doubt buying a new piece of equipment will ever pay back. 

 

I'm surprised high and lower powered gaming Pc power use is that different. If they just idle (for browsing etc.) I would have thought a modern powerful CPU/GPU will not use more than an older or weaker one. Quite the opposite, a more modern CPU/GPU could perform the same tasks (i.e. browsing, running YT) at much less load than an older one. I assume the high-powered gaming rig will have a larger PSU that will run less efficiently when idle. 

 

If you are concerned about power consumption, and you should be, get a platinum PSU and strategically select other hardware also based on power consumption. GN benchmarks include a W/fps benchmark chart as well. More efficient PC hardware will be a better investment than buying a separate device. That also will reduce cooling hardware cost somewhat. 

[Poinkachu]

42 minutes ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

My favourite are people who drive miles out of their way to get cheaper gas, likely costing them more due to the extra gas used to get there and back.

 

 

38 minutes ago, Holmes108 said:

 

Yes, or people who line up around the block because a station put fuel on sale by 10 cents vs. the competition.  I've had the gas conversation with my wife even. I've explained that her car has a 50L gas tank. So even a difference of 10 cents a liter (which is massive), only equals $5 across the entire tank, and that's assuming it's bone dry. We both tend to fill up when we get to half. How far are you willing to drive for that two fiddy lol. And that's if you're looking at stations with a 10c difference at the pumps. Usually it's much less.  

 

I have a Costco membership, but I rarely fill up there unless the gas station has empty spots.

 

edit: I shouldn't underestimate the psychological power of a "win" though, lol. And I mean that seriously.

 

That's my brother.
Told me (up to the point of sarcastically calling me Big Boss for not minding spending more) to go to specific station for cheaper gas, while it's 12KM farther than the one near my home. The difference in price is like ... 3 cents per liter.

 

Not to mention the amount of traffic jam my city having every damn hour.

 

[Alex Atkin UK]

Just now, Poinkachu said:

That's my brother.
Told me (up to the point of sarcastically calling me Big Boss for not minding spending more) to go to specific station for cheaper gas, while it's 12KM farther than the one near my home. The difference in price is like ... 3 cents per liter.

I'd be so tempted to work out how much fuel you used to make that trip to explain how its cost more.

This is likely why I have no friends.

[Lurking]

1 hour ago, Poinkachu said:

 

 

That's my brother.
Told me (up to the point of sarcastically calling me Big Boss for not minding spending more) to go to specific station for cheaper gas, while it's 12KM farther than the one near my home. The difference in price is like ... 3 cents per liter.

 

 

People also ignore wear, depreciation, and repair cost that increase with driving. Gas price is what we see, but is the cheapest part of driving. In the US federal tax rate is I think over $0.5 /mile. So assume that as cost for driving an extra mile. I usually get about 10 gallons in my tank when it is close to empty. So if I drive 1 extra mile roundtrip, gas would have to be more than 5ct/gallon cheaper. That hardly happens and also ignores my value of time. 

 

I try to fill up when under half and then just stop at a station on my way if the price doesn't look too outrageous. If I'm not driving by a station, this almost half full tank left gives me enough opportunity to have a convenient station the next day. Bonus point: if you get stuck in a snow blizzard or all of sudden a gas station is closed or you runout of time.... always having at least a half tank in the car can be a life saver. 

 

Just figure an extra 20 minutes to save a few ct on gas (ignoring the driving cost). Then take your hourly rate at work and imagine you put in an extra 20 minutes of paid work. 

[Poinkachu]

1 hour ago, Alex Atkin UK said:

I'd be so tempted to work out how much fuel you used to make that trip to explain how its cost more.

This is likely why I have no friends.

Let's see. My usual gas station charge me around $0.92 per litre, around 5km from my home, with traffic jam and all took me around 20 minutes tops to get there. Weird I know, due to me having to circle it a bit before reaching it. And there's an intersection that always have a bad jam. The way home though is always clear and straight, so 5 mins.

His station charge around $0.89, around 12km from my station, with traffic jam and all, will take me 1 hour minimum to reach. Well. 40 minutes if I drive like a madman everytime there's no traffic jam. So like 2 hour-ish roundtrip.

 

The funniest thing was when he refuse to buy a discounted 3-in-a-pack of something he often bought. Instead buying 1 at a time with no discounted price.
While he use the thing so much he have to buy a new one once a week.

In my mind it was like : "Seriously... you have no rights to teach me about saving money"
I contemplated about disowning him that day <_>

[Keltyx98]

1 hour ago, Lurking said:

the article wasn't really clear on what a "Gaming PC" really is

At the beginning they put some links with the builds. The high end has an i9-13900k, ROG strix RTX3080 EVA, ROG maximus Z790 hero, 2x16GB 6000MHz Ripjaws S5, Fractal Lumen S24 AiO, Corsair RM850x and a 1000GB Crucial P5.

 

 

1 hour ago, Lurking said:

get a platinum PSU

The efficiency difference between a gold and a platinum psu at 20% load is 5%. So if enegy is a problem but money is note, sure, go for it. But PSU rating really plays a minimal role on a gaming PC when you could probably save 20% of the energy by just changing the brand of the GPU. 

[Poinkachu]

19 minutes ago, Keltyx98 said:

At the beginning they put some links with the builds. The high end has an i9-13900k, ROG strix RTX3080 EVA, ROG maximus Z790 hero, 2x16GB 6000MHz Ripjaws S5, Fractal Lumen S24 AiO, Corsair RM850x and a 1000GB Crucial P5.

 

 

The efficiency difference between a gold and a platinum psu at 20% load is 5%. So if enegy is a problem but money is note, sure, go for it. But PSU rating really plays a minimal role on a gaming PC when you could probably save 20% of the energy by just changing the brand of the GPU. 

In the above case. CPU too :x

 

[Lurking]

2 hours ago, Keltyx98 said:

 

The efficiency difference between a gold and a platinum psu at 20% load is 5%. So if enegy is a problem but money is note, sure, go for it. But PSU rating really plays a minimal role on a gaming PC when you could probably save 20% of the energy by just changing the brand of the GPU. 

Platinum PSU makes more sense than buying a separate laptop and fiddling with monitors for now 2 computer...  And the whole article is about saving energy and using the computer many hours every day. Most, if not all, high quality gaming PSU are Gold anyway. So platinum isn't a ridiculous step up for someone concerned about energy (what seems to be the intended audience). Platinum PSU upcharge also is less costly than buying a separate laptop.

 

Better CPU and GPU is not in conflict with better PSU. And yes, anyone picking an Intel K CPU likely isn't interested in energysavings. 

 

At least the article taught us a tablet uses less energy than a full balls-to-the wall gaming rig. Next headline is that a Prius uses less fuel than a Semi Truck....

[Chris_UK]

Wouldn’t make a difference to me as my laptop is supplied by work and my setup runs with fuel monitors and I a daylight lamp as well. So the power consumption difference is probably not as wide and any heavy load I need to run I do on a virtual server.  So time and cost isn’t a thing.

 

however personally even if it was my own moneys I wouldn’t use the same device for gaming and work so either way I would still run two separate systems 

[thrasher_565]

On 3/9/2023 at 11:50 AM, Poinkachu said:

Let's see. My usual gas station charge me around $0.92 per litre, around 5km from my home, with traffic jam and all took me around 20 minutes tops to get there. Weird I know, due to me having to circle it a bit before reaching it. And there's an intersection that always have a bad jam. The way home though is always clear and straight, so 5 mins.

His station charge around $0.89, around 12km from my station, with traffic jam and all, will take me 1 hour minimum to reach. Well. 40 minutes if I drive like a madman everytime there's no traffic jam. So like 2 hour-ish roundtrip.

 

The funniest thing was when he refuse to buy a discounted 3-in-a-pack of something he often bought. Instead buying 1 at a time with no discounted price.
While he use the thing so much he have to buy a new one once a week.

In my mind it was like : "Seriously... you have no rights to teach me about saving money"
I contemplated about disowning him that day <_>

2 hours to get gas...dam... i think if you drive 40kh it save you gas,,, vs 50kh

 

it cost more gas to get gas...

[thrasher_565]

On 3/9/2023 at 10:49 AM, Keltyx98 said:

digitec.ch made an interesting article (only in German for now, sorry) where they compare the different power consumption of different machines for home office. 

Turns out that the energy consumption differs a lot but if you would buy an M2 Mac Mini for home office because it's 98% more energy efficient than the gaming computer it wold take you about 8 years to pay it back and start actually saving on the energy bill. (Considering Swiss prices)

 

What this article teaches me is that, if I have a laptop or an office computer laying around I should use it (if it performs well enough for home office). I might save 60$ a year.

 

What do you think?

I was surprised by the NUC's energy consumption given it has a (high-end) mobile CPU.

I would have preferred if they would have included a generic office computer, either prebuilt or DIY. Budget gaming PC and NUC would be overkill for me but a laptop might not be enough.

 

The prices are in Swiss Francs. 1 CHF is about 1 USD

is this graph a joke? what is the "hi end gaming pc?" what is the "budget gaming pc" what task are they doing...

[IRMacGuyver]

On 3/9/2023 at 1:40 PM, Lurking said:

You would have to re-plug the monitors if you switch between desktop and laptop/tablet all the time. And if you do processing-intensive tasks and use browse/goof around at the same time, you still use the desktop. 

 

the article wasn't really clear on what a "Gaming PC" really is. For all we know it could be an overclocked k-series CPU with a non-rated PSU and power settings to performance and CPU at 100% all the time. That alone makes the article useless. Oh yeah, a tablet uses less power than a gaming PC. No s$$t Sherlock... 

 

If you already have a laptop/tablet, just use that for minor tasks (like browsing around) and that way you also save power for the monitor. Like one uses the phone for many minor tasks that kill time. But I highly doubt buying a new piece of equipment will ever pay back. 

 

I'm surprised high and lower powered gaming Pc power use is that different. If they just idle (for browsing etc.) I would have thought a modern powerful CPU/GPU will not use more than an older or weaker one. Quite the opposite, a more modern CPU/GPU could perform the same tasks (i.e. browsing, running YT) at much less load than an older one. I assume the high-powered gaming rig will have a larger PSU that will run less efficiently when idle. 

 

If you are concerned about power consumption, and you should be, get a platinum PSU and strategically select other hardware also based on power consumption. GN benchmarks include a W/fps benchmark chart as well. More efficient PC hardware will be a better investment than buying a separate device. That also will reduce cooling hardware cost somewhat. 

You could get a monitor with multiple inputs or a switch to control it instead. 

[Keltyx98]

19 hours ago, thrasher_565 said:

is this graph a joke? what is the "hi end gaming pc?" what is the "budget gaming pc" what task are they doing...

If you click on the link at the beginning you can find all the details of everything. 

[thrasher_565]

19 minutes ago, Keltyx98 said:

If you click on the link at the beginning you can find all the details of everything. 

ya but its not in english

[Arika]

33 minutes ago, thrasher_565 said:

ya but its not in english

• High-End-Gaming-PC, Core i9-13900K, RTX 3080
• Budget-Gaming-PC, Ryzen 5 5500, RTX 3060

 

 

On 3/10/2023 at 5:49 AM, Keltyx98 said:

What this article teaches me is that, if I have a laptop or an office computer laying around I should use it (if it performs well enough for home office). I might save 60$ a year.

sorry, but that is one of the weirdest take aways for this article. If you bought the high end gaming PC with the 13900k and 3080....you can afford $60 extra dollars a year for power. and it's only if you have the high end PC that you could save $60 a year by going for a laptop for mac mini.

 

Your current PC can do exactly what you need it to. and you don't have to spend a lot more money unfront to get something that will eventually make your monthly bills cheaper in .

i would put your PC in the budget tier (34CHF per year) and lets assume you just get the entry level m2 mac mini (costs 649CHF and you're paying 4CHF a year). it will take 21 years for that purchase to make sense.

 

the actual take away should be "Buy what is needed for your most common task if power efficiency is all that matters for you"

[thrasher_565]

21 minutes ago, Arika S said:

• High-End-Gaming-PC, Core i9-13900K, RTX 3080
• Budget-Gaming-PC, Ryzen 5 5500, RTX 3060

 

 

sorry, but that is one of the weirdest take aways for this article. If you bought the high end gaming PC with the 13900k and 3080....you can afford $60 extra dollars a year for power. and it's only if you have the high end PC that you could save $60 a year by going for a laptop for mac mini.

 

Your current PC can do exactly what you need it to. and you don't have to spend a lot more money unfront to get something that will eventually make your monthly bills cheaper in .

i would put your PC in the budget tier (34CHF per year) and lets assume you just get the entry level m2 mac mini (costs 649CHF and you're paying 4CHF a year). it will take 21 years for that purchase to make sense.

 

the actual take away should be "Buy what is needed for your most common task if power efficiency is all that matters for you"

hmm still need all the specs, keyboard, mouse, monitors, other parts mb, ram, fans, fan speeds, psu, os, was it oced, under volted,  and also what task they are comparing them too... im gonna guess your not gaming on an apple mac mini and you would not buy a pc i9-13900K, RTX 3080 and not game with it... i suspect you can build something way cheaper then that... i think my 3090 uses less power then my 1080...

 

not only that thows are not even the most power effecnent but anyway i agree seem silly to be up tight about power when you got a $3k system...

 

cant really say on the artical but alot of these are people that are not experts. and i cant read it...

 

there probly better ways of saving moeny and power... i mean you can spend that 3k in to solor and send it to the grid and get paied for it.. but anyway...

 

also no that other parts of the world power really dose cost alot...

Edited March 14, 2023 by thrasher_565

[Sarra]

Why not just get a solar setup, and power your gaming PC without having to pay for electricity? Solar setup is going to cost way more than you would save, but at the same time, power outages wouldn't bother you.

[Keltyx98]

16 hours ago, Arika S said:

it will take 21 years for that purchase to make sense

Absolutely, that's why I think that the only thing that makes sense is if you have a laptop around that you don't use. 
Personally, the struggle to move everything on a laptop to save 34.- (or even 60.-) a year is not worth it.

[Keltyx98]

16 hours ago, thrasher_565 said:

hmm still need all the specs, keyboard, mouse, monitors, other parts mb, ram, fans, fan speeds, psu, os, was it oced, under volted,  and also what task they are comparing them too... im gonna guess your not gaming on an apple mac mini and you would not buy a pc i9-13900K, RTX 3080 and not game with it... i suspect you can build something way cheaper then that... i think my 3090 uses less power then my 1080...

 

not only that thows are not even the most power effecnent but anyway i agree seem silly to be up tight about power when you got a $3k system...

 

cant really say on the artical but alot of these are people that are not experts. and i cant read it...

 

there probly better ways of saving moeny and power... i mean you can spend that 3k in to solor and send it to the grid and get paied for it.. but anyway...

 

also no that other parts of the world power really dose cost alot...

Cant find all that detailed data but here are the builds:
- High end

- Budget gaming

Everything standard, no OC, no under voltage.

 

The test is: 

1. 1h 4k Youtube
2. 30min of Cinebench R23
3. 10 runs of Shadow of the Tom Raider Benchmark at 1440p, high details

Yeah I know this test doesn't simulate an "office usage" at all