Using too much hydro pcs

[DadEH]

I have 3 gaming pcs, one is a 12700f 4060, 32gb ram, 1tb m.2, amd 8700f 4060 16gb ram, 1 tb m.2, 11400f 3060 12gb, 16gb ram 1.5 tb m.2s.

I use 2 32 tvs and 24" monitor.

It's the only things that's running other then appliances. 

I've gotten all 3 within a year.

Any ideas on how I can use less power, or will I need to get rid of them and find something else?  One pc is mine rest are my kids.  So I'll need to get 3 replacements.

My landlord been complaining about hydro being high.  I'm in canada.

[thrasher_565]

hmm well i guess you need to make a list and see what uses what. what can be turned off, 

do you have led light bubs. i gueesing there kids and getting kids to turn things off probly wont work. 

 

i guess if you do other things on the pc depending on how long and what poasbly a cheap $100 low power pc to do things like youtube. and turn on the gaming pc only gaming.

 

can get on/off timers for things. house im in they put some light sensers in that auto turn on and off in areas. oh i guess you rent the house...you can talk about it to the land lord i guess. 

 

posably can get a water heater to turn off at night.

 

posably close doors and heat vents to un used rooms.

 

window cur tens might help in the winter

 

posably bbq

 

rain barrels for watering plants

Edited September 29, 2025 by thrasher_565

[Thomas53]

The highest wattage draw of the average home computer is 200 - 500 watts and a gaming computer 800 - 1200 watts. This is NOT what the PSU is rated at it's what the computer actually uses under normal usage. Remember that a Windows computer, by default doesn't actually turn  off off, it just goes into a low power situation, unless you bypass it. I'm not sure about Macs, but I do know that with Linux you can actually turn it off off.

 

And for example:

A modern (2000 - )refrigerator uses 400 watts, older models 700.

 

For more information  there is an excellent chart available at:

https://generatorfixer.com/wattage-calculator/wattage-chart/

[DadEH]

Calculating one of my pc with hydro rate came to 49$ month usage.  That was 200 watts I went by.

[thrasher_565]

5 hours ago, DadEH said:

Calculating one of my pc with hydro rate came to 49$ month usage.  That was 200 watts I went by.

that seems like a lot. but 250 ish wats is about normal for thow tire computers. 8700 using a bit more i would think.

 

my 3060ti idle uses 15w my 9370 uses 150w ya its horable. my 6600k uses abou65w to85w idel and about 250w gaming. and that just pc not counting my hdd, monitors, kvms, wireless audio, charging headphones. 

 

not really going to build a pc that uses less then 200ishw for gaming so...

 

 

[Commodus]

15 hours ago, DadEH said:

I have 3 gaming pcs, one is a 12700f 4060, 32gb ram, 1tb m.2, amd 8700f 4060 16gb ram, 1 tb m.2, 11400f 3060 12gb, 16gb ram 1.5 tb m.2s.

I use 2 32 tvs and 24" monitor.

It's the only things that's running other then appliances. 

I've gotten all 3 within a year.

Any ideas on how I can use less power, or will I need to get rid of them and find something else?  One pc is mine rest are my kids.  So I'll need to get 3 replacements.

My landlord been complaining about hydro being high.  I'm in canada.

Some usage habit questions:

 

How often are the computers used on a given day? When they're not in use, are they idle, put to sleep, or turned off?

 

The cheapest way to reduce power consumption is simply to turn the computers and their monitors/TVs completely off, and to use them less. Cap computer time beyond what you do already. I don't want to make any assumptions about your circumstances, to be clear — I just want to float ideas.

 

It'd be difficult to rein in power consumption with the PCs as they are. The most efficient solution might be to get laptops with equvalent GPUs, as that should lower the overall power consumption ceiling. You might also want to see what the TVs' power draw is like and consider using monitors if they'll pull less electricity.

 

And like was mentioned earlier, you can also look at reducing power consumption for secondary things like lighting. You might not have to trim back the computers as much if you're starting from a more efficient foundation.