Total PC Wattage - Real World

[RemyXIII®]

I have AIDA64 and have noticed that when idle (nothing running, not touching keyboard/mouse) that the wattage figures are as follow:

CPU 8-10W (i9-10900f)
GPU 10-15W (3070 FE)

I leave my PC on for long periods so am curious what the "real world" wattage figures are when in this state (I rarely put the PC in sleep or hibernate but will use the screen saver). Truly other things have to be using power as well right? RAM/FANS/etc.

Not counting the monitor, what are some realistic figures for how much my PC is consuming in this idle state?

Any ideas?

[Supafly]

CPU and GPU are not the only watts used in a system. They just use the most. Hard to say as things like Windows update could be used in idle along with any other software with auto update. Yes Fans, RGB, Pump (if water cooled), storage and any USB devices will draw some power. Not a lot in comparison but will be drawing some.

If you want absolute accurate figures consider a power meter £10 of less. Power meter has a passthrough socket so plug it into power socket and PC into the power meter.


If PC into an extension you can plug the extension in and the meter will measure all devices, PC , monitor, speakers and anything else.

[DevaVictrix]

Yeah, you need a power meter. Including monitor I think mine ticks over at 100w. Full load 350w. I’ve got an old tower server that ticks over at 250w! I can’t believe how often I read people leave thier computer on 24/7… money down the drain!

Edit:
100-125w with monitor, 80-100w without.

[Overseer]

Nobody can tell. You have to measure it yourself at the wall.

[Bad 💀 Motha]

80-100 watts can be fairly normal for a high end PC when idle. However that's not what matters when looking at how to choose a PSU. You have to look at what the full load draw would or could be based around all your parts plus some head room. Head room is needed for PSU efficiency as well. So even if my PC only ever draws a max of 450-500 watts or so, it's not u realistic to use a gold or platinum rated 750 watts PSU. Also the power the power actually drawn at the wall tends to be higher as 10% or so of your power draw at the wall is lost due to various reasons.

It can also be difficult to accurately account for extra power drawn due to over-clocked CPU and or GPU but those could easily be a good 10-15% above what their stock max TDP lists for the product model.

To better look at this without using a multi-meter you'd need to at least use something such as Kill-A-Watt at the wall where you'd plug in your PC. Then do a decent full load test with the cpu and gpu drawing max power. Plus these aren't your only power draw. The motherboard with what's on it can draw most of your idle power as everything has to feed through that which can make up a good base of approx 50-80 watts or so.

Apps generally can't really show you all your system power aside from maybe cpu, gpu, and storage + usb devices.