PC Power Cost Calculator
What does your gaming PC actually add to the electric bill? Pick your CPU and GPU, set your daily hours and local rate, and get honest monthly and yearly numbers computed from real hardware power specs - wall draw, not spec-sheet fantasy. No signup, nothing to install.
Your Components
Usage & Electricity Rate
Presets are ballparks - your bill has the real number.
Why running cost is worth two minutes
Nobody prices a GPU by its power bill, and mostly they are right not to - performance is the point. But the gap between builds is real money over years: a 250W-class card versus a 450W flagship, played hard at coastal electricity rates, can differ by well over $100 a year. That is worth knowing before you shrug at a $50 price difference between two power supplies, and it is the honest tiebreaker between cards that otherwise trade blows.
The tool models gaming load the way hardware actually behaves - games load a CPU to roughly 60% of its rated TDP while a GPU runs near its full power limit - then divides by your power supply's efficiency, because the wall pays for the conversion loss too. If you want the wattage answer for sizing a power supply rather than the bill, that is the PSU calculator's job; and if you are not sure your CPU and GPU even belong together, start with the bottleneck checker.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much electricity does a gaming PC use?
A typical mid-range gaming PC draws 350-500W from the wall while gaming and 60-100W during regular desktop use. At the US-average residential rate and a few hours of daily play, that lands between $8 and $25 per month. High-end builds with a 300W+ GPU can roughly double that while gaming.
Does a gaming PC use a lot of electricity when idle?
Much less than people fear. Modern CPUs and GPUs clock down aggressively when you are browsing or watching video, so even a high-end build settles around 55-90W plus the monitor - comparable to a couple of light bulbs. The parts you bought matter enormously while gaming and barely at all at idle.
Is an 80+ Gold power supply worth it over Bronze?
Usually, but for smaller money than the marketing implies. Gold converts about 5% more wall power into usable power than Bronze, which typically saves $5-15 per year at normal gaming hours. Since Gold units often cost only $20-30 more and tend to be better built, they pay for themselves over the PSU's life - just do not expect dramatic bill savings.
How can I lower my gaming PC's power bill?
In order of impact: cap your frame rate to your monitor's refresh rate (a GPU rendering 300fps on a 144Hz panel is burning money for frames you never see), enable sleep instead of leaving the PC on overnight, undervolt the GPU (often 10-15% less power for 2-3% less performance), and pick an efficient PSU. Turning the PC off at the wall overnight saves a few dollars a year at most on a modern build.