When you purchase a new computer, the asking price of the computer is not the only money you’ll be spending on the system. The computer system is also going to use a good deal of electricity and increase your monthly utility bills by a drastic amount. Of course, different computers use different amounts of power, so it isn’t possible to just have a single, lump assessment of the electricity any computer uses.

Even after a single computer is purchased, it is possible to upgrade the hardware and alter the internal workings of the system, which is also going to directly affect the energy consumption. Thankfully, you have several different available options for determining the power consumption of your computer.

Website Service

For starters, if you don’t want to download software or purchase added equipment in order to determine the power consumption of the computer, you can visit the website EasyCalculation.com, or one similar. When you visit the website you need to enter in all of the basic information regarding your computer, including the CPU, motherboard, video card, memory, optical drive, PCI cards, fan and hard drive. You can find this information listed in the About This Mac or Control Panel of your computer system, depending on what computer you’re using and what kind of operating system is installed. When you calculate the information, it will display the overall power supply consumption average of the computer system.

Of course, the older the computer is, the more power it is going to use, because the fan might run hotter or other hardware might not function as well. This is going to give you a general estimate, but it is the fastest option for determining a ballpark figure of the computer system’s power consumption.

All of the necessary information you need to input while using Easy Calculation.

Application Downloads

If you want a service that is going to be a little bit more accurate you can download an application (such as the free BizEE Software). The application is able to monitor all of the features and hardware that are on your computer, and perform a direct calculation of their power usage. This and several other applications are available for free through a variety of different services, such as the Apple App Store or Download.com.

Once the application is installed on the computer and launched, it runs a direct diagnostic of the computer in order to determine exactly how much energy the computer has while running. These apps work on both desktop and laptop computers.

BizEE up and running, monitoring the total computer energy consumption.

Power Analyzer

The best possible method for determining how much electricity a computer (or any other device that connects to an electrical outlet) uses is through an energy meter. This device plus directly into an electrical outlet but has an open face outlet on the front. You can then plug the computer into the device and turn on both the device and the computer. The digital display on the device is then able to give an instant readout of how much energy the computer is using. You can even connect or disconnect devices while the equipment is running to measure the difference in energy usage. This way, with this kind of equipment connected to your computer, you always know the energy used.