High-end desktop power test reveals hidden costs of PC gaming
Digital Storm's 950Si carries hidden costs for gamers.
(Credit: Sarah Tew/CNET)If you're a PC gamer, you might willingly pay $15 a month to stomp around the World of Warcraft. What if we also told you that depending on your rig and daily play time, you might also be paying a hidden fee of $10 or more a month to play even single-player PC games?
After our debut round of all-in-one PC power efficiency results, we've had a chance to test the power consumption of a few other kinds of desktops. The most intriguing system so far has been a $3,600 gaming desktop from Digital Storm.
It's no surprise that a quad-core, overclocked gaming system with a 1,000-watt power supply and dual-chip 3D card sucks up energy. We also weren't shocked that the Digital Storm PC drew more power by itself than even the most inefficient all-in-one, which includes the power draw from its display. But once we crunched the numbers, we admit we didn't expect to find such a large disparity.
Consider the following comparison, drawn from the power consumption tests in each system's review:
Annual power consumption cost - Apple iMac (24-inch, 2.66GHz): $16.20
Annual power consumption cost - Sony Vaio LV250B: $29.40
Annual power consumption cost - Digital Storm 950Si: $118.27
Annual power consumption cost - Digital Storm 950Si (2.4 gaming hours/day): $134.77
(See our power testing methodology here.)
Digital Storm has the unfortunate honor of submitting the first high-end gaming rig since we implemented our power testing, so let us be clear that we have no way to say (yet) how its results compare with those of systems from other boutique PC vendors.
As a $3,600 configuration, though, this system represents the middle ground for performance gaming nicely. It didn't set any performance records, but it can play most current games at decent image quality settings on a 24-inch LCD at full resolution. And while we will allow that an extra $120 to $130 in annual power charges might not present a financial challenge to someone who's paid $3,600 for a gaming PC, anyone might pause to consider that even with a nongaming workload (aka our multimedia multitasking test), a system such as this Digital Storm 950Si will consume roughly four to seven times as much energy as a high-end all-in-one PC.
Most performance-driven gamers will consider the added power consumption simply the cost of racking up more kills, but that hasn't stopped vendors from trying to bring that cost down. HP's Firebird was an admirable first attempt, and we're eager to see what Maingear has accomplished with its forthcoming Pulse. Hopefully Maingear, unlike HP, can keep the power draw down, without charging you more for the privilege of fewer frame rates and limited upgradability. We'll know once we get one in for review.
Rich Brown reviews desktops and various other components and peripherals for CNET. E-mail Rich. 
Regardless of how we categorize them, or the price of this particular system, I'd argue that its the core specs that are most relevant (although I probably should have specified them in the blog post). Overclocked Core i7 920, Geforce GTX 295, 1000 watt PSU. You can find the full breakdown in the review (http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/digital-storm-950si-intel/4505-3118_7-33626866.html).
I'd expect a resourceful DIYer could build a system with similar parts to that Digital Storm for $2,000 or less. That person might also feel the pinch of the extra $10 a month in power a bit more.
Streamline asked for a $500 to $600 comparison below. I'm not sure how relevant those would be to someone shopping in the $2000 to $4000 range, but it's also easy enough to do. A $500 Asus system (http://reviews.cnet.com/desktops/asus-essentio-cm5570-ap002/4505-3118_7-33699649.html) with an integrated 3D chip came in around around $25 on the year, much closer to an all-in-one (although with much slower performance and fewer features, not even counting the lack of an LCD).
As we get more systems in to review, and thus expand our power data pool (we started less than a month ago), I'll be making more comparisons like this. I'll be working my way down the desktops on this list (http://news.cnet.com/back-to-school/pc-reviews/?tag=mncol;title) if you'd like to see what's on deck. The higher-end systems, I believe all of which have discrete 3D cards, should provide some insight in what kind of power consumption to expect from more mainstream gaming rigs.
Your spoiled comment isn't far from the mark. I'll use cars as an example. I had a 96 Corolla. Great car. Slow but great MPG, not so quiet, pretty good road feel compared to what I had been driving before. I replaced it with a 2005 Corolla. The newer car is better in every way than the older one and to be frank every car I've ever owned. However folks who rate cars call it a car for people who don't like driving. After a little thought I relaized that folks who rate cars get to see and drive everthing out there today. I don't. I get to buy my one car to replace my old car and I'll drive less cars in my entire life than they do in a year. So you have to take it all with a grain of salt. While looking I did drive a car the raters liked. A Mazda M3. Nice car. Not better than the corolla for my purpose but there was a bit more fun factor to it. Not leaps and and bounds above the Corolla but enough to notice. Just not enough to edge out the Corolla for my purpose. Apparently sometimes that tad of magic can send a prodcut from the "A car for people who don't like driving" to "If you have to have a crappy econobox this is the one".
That said, we do try to find some reason to review super-expensive gaming systems beyond the thrill of sticker shock. It could be to show the performance impact of a new technology, such as solid state hard drives, or highly overclockable CPUs. It could also be to demonstrate what it takes to hit a certain level of performance (like 60 fps in Crysis at 1,600 x 1,200, which, incidentally, this Digital Storm system just missed with 59 fps).
2ndly, they compared them to all-in-ones, which I think tend to be the most efficient desktops, but not the most popular. Instead, they should compare it to a low to mid range tower desktop ($500-$600)
3rdly, while I do have (what I would consider) a gaming PC, I highly doubt I incur costs nearly that high, and I suspect the majority of PC gamers probably run something closer to what I run, rather than something closer to that storm.
Mine is a 2.4ghz core 2 quad, 4 gb ram, 260gtx, and 2 hard drives, running off of a 650watt xigmatek psu, that runs at 87% efficiency. At slightly more than half the watts, and probably alot more efficient (not to mention no overclocking or insanely power-drawing components), I probably pay half that at most.
And as I mentioned in a comment above, we power-tested a $500 Asus desktop (2.6GHz Intel Dual Core Pentium E5300, integrated 3D chip) and calculated a $25 annual power bill. I wouldn't call that gaming system, though.
We'll have results for more modest gaming systems in a week or two, and I also expect they'll be much lower than those from the Digital Storm.
My Dell Precision M65 (2.4 GHz, 3 GB RAM, integrated nVidia video) performs more slowly than my desktop for games, but in terms of power drain, I think 40 Watts is a bit lower than 200 Watts.
I wonder how high end gaming laptops (i.e. Alienware) would compare to the high end desktops in terms of performance and power drain.
Most people already have a computer, an average Dell is around $750, but is necessary. You can build a nice DIY system for that price, and take the extra $300 you saved by not buying a PS3 and make your computer budget to a very nice DIY $1050 rig.
Even upgrading your standard house desktop with a new mid to high end GPU, only cost >$200, that is less than a xbox360 or a PS3.
PC gaming is cheaper than console.
Intel Core 2 Duo 3.0 GHz
1TB HDD
Nvidia GeForce 9600 GT
X-Fi Gaming sound card
650 Watt PSU
Cost: About 1100 after everything
I notice roughly a 5 dollar increase between times when I am on my computer (college) and times I'm not. This holds true for games as well. So, the power increase may not be noticeable on the power bill. I know in my region they are changing rates for power all the time. I just know the general range of what my bill should be. I chalk it up to energy rates...
Core 2 quad, i7, or Phenom 2 x4? I got the q6600 (2.4 ghz core 2 quad) a year ago for a little less than $200 (it's still the same price), and I still haven't met a game that even remotely stresses it, even without overclocking (except GTA4, but that was pretty badly programmed for PC). You really can't go wrong with any of those three (though i7 is significantly more expensive).
But given, I had your same though. I still suspect a console hooked up to a huge TV would consume similar amounts of power to a computer hooked up to a 20-24 inch monitor
If you don't want to click:
Average plasma: 339 watts
Average rear-projection: 211 watts
Average LCD: 213 watts
PlayStation 3: 197 watts
Xbox 360: 187 watts
Those are all load results only, so no sleep, off, etc., but it breaks out (roughly) to between 400 and 500 watts for a TV/console combo. The Digital Storm's average load was 489 watts. I don't have an average for LCD's handy, but the results from our recent tests seem to be in the 30 to 80 range at max luminance. Split the difference and call it 55, and you're looking at slightly higher load consumption for PCs, at least by these incomplete, statistically inaccurate parameters. Glad I could help?
Seriously, though, the TV/console vs PC/display power consumption could be an interesting index. We'll need more PC data first.
Congratulations!
You just bought your brand new Shelby Special Edition 427 GT500 Super Snake for $79.999, but do you realise you could paying an additional hidden annual fee in increased gasoline consumption ranging from anywhere around $300 up to $3000 if you have fun with it around the track a lot?
...HELL YEA, I DO!!! It effin' better do that, or I'm taking it back!
One thing that I do agree with you is that a $4k computer is no where near mid-range. Something that I found quite ironic from what Rich Brown commented earlier, "Regardless of how we categorize them, or the price of this particular system, I'd argue that its the core specs that are most relevant." Yet he still calls them midrange. The only thing that could of made it higher spec'd would have been an extra gtx295, ssd, blu-ray drive, and a higher i7 cheap. But the rig mentioned is pretty much already top tier performance.
As of now a mid-range computer is most likely a quad core, a gtx285/ hd4890, hdd, etc.
$3,600 barely gives boutique vendors room to flex their muscles. Falcon NW, Maingear, Velocity Micro, etc., can hit $12,000 easy. I'm not sure how much extra performance you'd get for that price, but even the parts you mentioned would add another $1,000 to $2,000 to the $3,600 price tag. My perception of midrange might be skewed, but there's lots of room between this $3,600 spec and the upper limits of PC performance.
That said, while you may find that games on modest rigs play perfectly well, to hit super-high resolutions (say, on a 30-inch display) with all IQ effects dialed up (16x AA, etc), you likely will need a high-end 3D card or two, at least for a few titles.
I think we can all agree that efficiency is an admirable goal, and I'll definitely highlight a PC that boasts fast performance relative to its power consumption. But the primary reason for our power testing is to give you more information ahead of a purchase.
The Playstation may have 6 cores while an average gaming PC has a 4 core processor, what's different is that the GPU has atleast 12 cores for games processing
I don't even know where to begin... there are no PCs with six cores. The new core i7 processors use four hyperthreaded cores (which means eight processing threads). I also might point out that the cell has one core (an old power PC core @ 3.2ghz), with six SPEs, which are not cores (the help it run multiple threads). However, when it comes to general computing, the cell has never been faster - it does what it was designed to do very well, which is crunch numbers (alot of calculations), but it's never been any good at general computing (I can't do out of order processing and such). This is why it is generally used to super computers (which are usually used to do massive physics calculations), but it has never been seen in the world of personal computing.
But more importantly, the graphics chip the PS3 has in it is based off of the 7800gtx, which is pretty archaic by today's standards. More graphics chips today (9800gt and up) are worlds faster, and the 8xxx series and up all have phys-x processing, which offloads much of the physics calculations from the CPU. Though to be quite honest, even my older q6600 quad core only uses a fraction of it's power during most games - the GPU does most of the heavy lifting. Most games today rely far more on the GPU than the CPU.
Now, I'm not saying all this to explain how much more awesome the PC is for gaming or anything - consoles have their advantages as well, the greatest being uniform hardware that games can be better optimized for. People are welcome to play games on whatever they want. However, when it comes to certain areas, specifically graphics, an $800-$900 gaming PC will trounce a current gen console every time. I'm not going to give another response that long.
Intel Core2Quad Q9550, XFX nVidia 9800 GX2, XFX nVidia 790i Ultra mobo, 3 HDDs + 2 DVD burners, TV Tuner card, and so on. The PSU is a Thermaltake ToughPower 1200w with APFC and 80%+ efficiency, so I'm not sure exactly how much power it uses.
Then again, I don't pay the power bill at home.
I built my system, yes, but many people do not have the time or knowledge to know what they're getting themselves into when buying components, assembling the PC, or troubleshooting problems that often arise. This is why HP and Dell move so many systems a year.
Gamers who build their own system are still considered a niche in my opinion, of all my friends and people in my previous gaming clan, few have systems they built themselves, they're usually midrange desktops they purchased at a B&M and added some ram or a beefier GPU down the line. Much less hassle when something doesn't work, there's CS and if all else fails, you get a replacement of some sort.
But what I find funny is that so many people responding are missing the point of energy consumption. Even if you didn't care about the extra $$$ that goes into having a PC built to the hilt, the environmental impact is still there and you're still drawing 500+ watts when playing Crysis, but seeing how many people [and a lot of people do this] leave their PCs running practically all day, these numbers may even prove to be conservative.
- by renGek July 9, 2009 11:54 AM PDT
- I notice that when I bought my plasma tv, my electric bill was about $7 higher/month.
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Showing 1 of 2 pages (68 Comments)Entertainment is entertainment. If you're willing to sell out the money then its all good. One can argue its stupid to spend $3000 on a computer but one can also argue its stupid to spend more than $15 on any kind of jewlery or one can argue spending more than $1000 on a pair of speakers is silly or that more than $10,000 on a car is silly or that more than $500K for a 1 bedroom condo is silly...its all perspective.
Now you can actually save money too. If you spend all your time playing games on your pc and you're not going on dates and paying $150 for dinner and a movie or $1000 for the weekend getaways, why you'll make up for that $3000 pc in no time. :)