Widescreen Gaming Forum

by the way, as an aside I don't know if anyone is aware that depending on your country/electricity cost where you live an extreme configuration could cost you a non negligible amount

let's take a GTX480 alone : 51W idle 298W load

let's take a virtual tamlin living in france
298W /1000 * 3 GTX 480 * average number of hours of gaming per day * 365 * 0.0839 kWh (price of electricity)
+ 51W /1000 * 3 GTX 480 * average number of hours of idling/surfing per day * 365 * 0.0839 kWh

this can become quite an amount in itself if we take 3 hours of idle & 2 hours of gaming per day that gives 69€ or 86$ per year of electricity cost alone WITHOUT accounting for power efficiency loss due to power supplies consuming more than the hardware really use (with an already quite solid 80% efficiency this would become 86€ or 107$ ...)

sure I took an extreme case example but still, take this basic formulae, tweak it for your own needs and find out whether your expensive hardware actually cost you some more than you thought ;)

As for myself, this actually represent a bit more than one month worth of electricity bill, or 1/10 of my yearly expenses or a new hard drive per year in electricity bill :lol: :lol: :lol:

edit : a reading error slipped in my math now corrected :oops: :oops:

:lol: Virtual wife would be very happy if virtual Tamlin decided to move to France! She was bugging me yesterday about going to Paris again!

Good point, but I would have preferred to use: Cost of GTX480 setup - (minus) cost of alternative = added cost, since a user would probably get a system anyway. :)

hey thales, did you post pictures & details somewhere of your setup I'm interested how all that fits & is cooled
thanks.

Hey, yes i posted two pics here - http://www.widescreengamingforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=193400#p193400 . :)

:lol: Virtual wife would be very happy if virtual Tamlin decided to move to France! She was bugging me yesterday about going to Paris again!

Good point, but I would have preferred to use: Cost of GTX480 setup - (minus) cost of alternative = added cost, since a user would probably get a system anyway. :)

lol :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
if you're thinking about a couple of alternatives then name them I'll do the calc
or your could use the general formulae below :
(Watt Consumed by your new gfx cards in load - Watt Consumed by your old gfx cards in load) /1000 * average number of hours of gaming per day * 365 days * price of electricity in kWh + (Watt Consumed by your new gfx cards in idle- Watt Consumed by your old gfx cards in idle) /1000 * average number of hours of idling/surfing per day * 365 days * price of electricity in kWh

this could be simplified however I don't think anyone actually cares ^^



ho by the way I did the calc wrong, took the wrong number about idle consumption :oops: :oops: :oops:
I'll correct that right away now corrected

ho and thanks thales100 BTW nice gaming rig :)

[quote]:lol: Virtual wife would be very happy if virtual Tamlin decided to move to France! She was bugging me yesterday about going to Paris again!

Good point, but I would have preferred to use: Cost of GTX480 setup - (minus) cost of alternative = added cost, since a user would probably get a system anyway. :)

lol :mrgreen: :mrgreen:
if you're thinking about a couple of alternatives then name them I'll do the calc
ho by the way I did the calc wrong, took the wrong number about idle consumption :oops: :oops: :oops:
I'll correct that right away

ho and thanks thales100 BTW nice gaming rig :)


Take 3X 480 minus 3X 5870 as example. :) It will never be 100% accurate, but review comparison is often done with same amount of cards, so the number can be seen in contrast with those reviews.

ho and thanks thales100 BTW nice gaming rig :)

Thanks whismerhill, yes its running great now with these new Nvidia drivers. :mrgreen:

[quote] ho and thanks thales100 BTW nice gaming rig :)

Thanks whismerhill, yes its running great now with these new Nvidia drivers. :mrgreen:

Would be cool if you made a "Nvidia surround - first impressions" thread. I'll sticky it for sure. :D

Would be cool if you made a "Nvidia surround - first impressions" thread. I'll sticky it for sure. :D

Nice idea, ill post my first impressions tonight ok.

Nice! :D Lots of pictures if you can! Not a requirement, but I think many would find that fun!

in the case of 3x 5870 with still 2 hours of gaming per day & 3 hours of idle per day we're talking about 41€ or 51 $
with a power supply efficiency of 80% that would give a 51€ or 64$

so by upgrading from 3x 5870 to 3x 480GTX you would add 86-51 = 35 € or 44$ to your yearly electricity bill

however that's only valid for this particular example, I know people that leave their computer always on and that changes the whole calculations by a lot, I know people who have childs and play like 30 minutes per day on average and that changes everything again ...

hence why everyone should adapt to himself

Bottomline if you're an extreme gamer and or if you're used to letting your computer idle for several hours a day, it could become more & more meaningful ... however if you're not in any of those case and you have very casual usage obviously it will mean nothing to you ;)