How Much Does It Cost to Run a Gaming PC?

While you play a demanding game, a typical gaming PC with a mid- to high-range graphics card draws around 400 W at the wall. Four hours of play a day uses 1.6 kWh, which costs about $0.29 a day in the US, £0.42 in the UK and €0.58 in Germany, or about $8.83, £12.80 and €17.60 a month.

These figures cover the PC itself. Add your monitor separately: most use about 20–100 W, with large, bright or high-refresh-rate screens at the top of that range. Speakers and other accessories usually add only a little.

The graphics card (GPU) is usually the biggest user, followed by the processor (CPU). An entry-level gaming PC may draw 200–350 W while gaming, while a high-end PC with a top graphics card can draw 600 W or more.

What you do matters as much as the hardware. A demanding game at high settings and an uncapped frame rate pushes the GPU to full power; a lighter game, or a frame-rate cap, can cut that sharply. Browsing, video or sitting at the desktop typically uses only about 50–120 W.

The power supply's rating, such as 750 W or 1,000 W, is the most it can deliver, not what the PC uses. A PC with a large power supply draws only what its parts need.

Current consoles such as the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X typically draw about 150–220 W while gaming, roughly half of a typical gaming PC, so they cost about half as much per hour of play.

Gaming laptops usually draw less than desktops with similar-sounding parts, often about 100–250 W under load, because their components are tuned to run within tighter power limits.

Hours spent idling add up. A PC left on at the desktop overnight, at about 80 W for 8 hours, uses around 0.64 kWh, nearly half of a 4-hour gaming session.

Sleep mode typically cuts that to a few watts, and the PC wakes up in seconds. Downloads and updates can still be scheduled to run while you're nearby or set to finish before the PC sleeps.

Figures are measured at the wall and typical for 2026 hardware. The best way to know your own PC's draw is a plug-in power meter; use that number in the calculator.

• Cap your frame rate at your monitor's refresh rate, or turn on V-Sync, so the GPU doesn't render frames you can't see.
• Set the PC to sleep after a short idle time instead of leaving it on overnight.
• Lower demanding graphics settings you don't notice, or use upscaling features if your game supports them.
• Turn off the monitor and speakers when you step away.
• When upgrading, compare the power ratings of graphics cards with similar performance; newer, more efficient cards can deliver the same frame rate at lower power.

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